Yet another bombshell and Pietersen again back to lime light. He has been asked by the skipper to stay and act in professional limit. The talented English cricketer seems to be moved too much by England’s miserable performance in the series against Windies. And it has become so hard for him to bear it that the aggressive batsman actually went as far as urging his management to grant a leave so that he can fly back home and be with his singer wife. 

(Read the Cricket360 related article "Sourav Ganguly Shot Back at Pietersen")    

 

“It's been a heck of a tough time and I'm at the end of my tether now. Really and truly I can't wait to get home” – the ex-skipper of England who was sold for $1.5 million in the IPL recently, was quoted saying yesterday. Naturally, he was denied permission for flying 48 hours back home in the middle of an international cricket series. The rebel of English cricket was reminded that players are allowed to do so only on the occasions of family bereavements or when their wives are expecting on the last stage of pregnancy.

Pietersen was never very much popular among the circles of his colleagues. But the bombshells that he has been dropping on the cricket news media in the recent times might have soured it even further. He called one of his team mates (Samit Patel) as “unfit, fat and lazy” in one of his interviews last week. He did not even spare the opponents; he sparked off yet another cricket controversy by calling West Indies batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul “a selfish cricketer.” These led the current English skipper hinting that Pietersen is testing his team mates’ patience and duly advised him to stay quiet and act professionally. “Sometimes what he says is put in big headlines so he must be conscious of the attention what he says does receive,” Strauss said.

One of his friends however says that it is the killer instinct in Pietersen that is to be blamed for all these un-political remarks. The thing with KP is he is brutally honest. He might be better off realizing that it would be in his long-term interests to keep his trap shut in future but that is not his way. He is a stereotypical foreign sportsman. He has a killer instinct we lack in this country and we love that when he is playing cricket. But along with that you also get someone brutally honest. Sometimes in this country we don't like to hear the truth. All but three or four members of the England squad would have said the same thing if they had the balls to do it but they don’t.” said a friend of Pietersen who has been in touch since last week’s interview.

If English cricket has thrown him on the wit’s end, a spell with Indian Premier League in the next month will probably fix the things for better - for him and for the team. Bought for a whopping price and made the captain of Bangalore franchise, Pietersen is undoubtedly a hot commodity in the IPL. It is to be seen, whether the extraordinary batsman could live up to the hype. We only wish that attacking batsman finds solace in the company of his pop singer wife Jessica Taylor, when he comes back home after a successful stint with IPL. May be it will have a therapeutic effect on the English batsman who is seemingly under stress since January this year. 

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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