KP Magic

The much maligned Kevin Pietersen, considered by many of Ian Botham's "pink gin set" to be little more than a show pony and shunned for the erratic nature of his batting, has in two days both confirmed and yet denied those who would have seen him off at the start of the English summer.

After spending the first day moving about the crease and missing far more than he hit - there were 65 dots in his first 80 deliveries - he applied the same tactics on the second day at Lords but put the middle of the bat on a chagrined Indian attack. Jack Fingleton described Bradman's unorthodox tactics to combat Larwood and Co in much the same terms in "Cricket Crisis" and the unfavourable critique it received among the players and press. Pietersen isn't that good but his innings today was never the less impressive and will receive none of the Don's misapprehension. With Zaheer in the pavilion and Inshant Sharma playing the bully boy with short rubbish bowled aimlessly over leg stump, Pietersen reaped a rich harvest. MS Dhoni even twice came out from behind the stumps in a swap with Dravid, to bowl eight overs ... so short handed did things seem. It was remarkable that he didn't use Suresh Raina more on a day when England dominated.

Of course, no man is an island and the game of cricket is designed around the company you keep and how you choose to keep it and Pietersen's double century had mates. After Trott left to a perfect Praveen inswinger and ended a partnership of 98, Bell provided his usual mix of sweet cover drives and perfect cut strokes in adding 110, almost unseen. Not withstanding the heroics all around him, Bell is simply the best timer of a cricket shot England have. The other players in England's top seven are men to appreciate but Bell is the man you turn up to see. He feathered a Praveen outswinger to Dhoni and Eion Morgan went a few balls later, apparently off the inside edge. He walked without a DRS complaint but replays showed it hit his pad. Prior followed and was his usual robust self at the crease, scoring his runs quickly and the majority of a 120 partnership which took England beyond danger. Praveen made another double strike, booming the swinging ball into Broad's pads first ball but India were feeling the effects of a shattered bowling attack and Swann hit three 4's at close to run a ball with Pietersen by that stage smashing everything as the pair added 61 in nine overs.

Strauss declared to have a crack at the Indian openers, which was a positive move. Many international captains would have feasted with a batsmen just raising his double and a beaten attack but in reality, your bowlers should be good enough to win a game when the batsmen have made well over four hundred in the first dig.

Kevin Pietersen is erratic - as a batsman, as a player and as a person. He's a passionate man and often very vulnerable but thank goodness we can still find room in the game for such as he. Modern coaching, with its emphasis on stats, computer modelling, repetitive physical training, nutrition and metronomic insistence on following a plan to the letter has often threatened to create a bland diet of players who have much in common with the uniform sea of red roofs you float over on an approach to Kingsford Smith in Sydney. Men like Michael Clarke are all just little boxes made out of ticky tacky. The game needs its individuals because it is these men who turn the monster leg break, who smash the fabulous century, who hold the soaring catch. Do we really want a game with no Nuggets, no Dougies, no Warnies, no KPs? Do we really want to shut out of the game players whose passion and drive can lift them to such heights of performance but who at the end of the day can still retain their humanity. This shot of Praveen Kumar and Kevin Pietersen is surely what we want our game to be.

Today was an interesting contest where one such player took on and thrashed another: Pietersen made Sharma stumble and fall. The delicious anticipation of what Sharma can do about that is what takes us back to the boundary each time.