I don’t know any South African who likes Kevin Pietersen. Down South he’s considered an arrogant twit and a traitor.
Yet last week I discovered that no one here up North likes him much either, considering him a twit and … well, a traitor.
In fact, now that he’s been sacked from the England cricket team, his most vocal defender is a newspaper and TV ‘personality’ called Piers Morgan who made his name by writing about worthless celebrities. As the saying goes, with friends like that, yada yada.
But why is he so disliked in England?
It’s not because of his South African links – he has a genuine claim to being English as his mother was born here. In fact, many revered British sportsmen were born abroad; Andrew Strauss took his first breath in Durban, for example.
It’s not because he’s arrogant – indeed, he’s quite humble compared to the widely loved Muhammad Ali.
It’s not because he’s a twit – most celebrities make ol’ Kev look like a rocket scientist.
Also, unlike many other sportsmen, he’s a genuine ‘great’. He has almost single handedly won tests for England and some of his greatest achievements were against arch-enemy Australia.
So this has always puzzled me. Why is someone who has pulled the county out of the dwang so often on the pitch so universally reviled?
Old world values
It’s this. In England, cricket is the last bastion of the old world values that were once the spine of the country.
Among most cricket fans, the old adage that if something isn’t right it’s ‘just not cricket’, is still alive. And above all, loyalty is treasured.
The barmy army is a true symbol of this – they are more loyal than the mangiest mutt you’ve ever had. Few, if any, of the ‘barmies’ left when England was being humiliated by the Aussies in the recent Ashes series. They hung in to the end, singing lustily on the sidelines and supporting their team through its worst disgrace.
Pietersen, symbolically or otherwise, is the antithesis of that. Lack of loyalty has been his hallmark in English cricket. He moved first to Nottinghamshire, then Hampshire, now Surrey.
In the England team, he seems to have been at the core of every dressing room spat for at least the last five years.
Even his successes have been marred; when he shared a century partnership with 22-year-old newcomer James Taylor at Headingley, instead of congratulating a youngster on his heroic debut, Pietersen walked off the field with the South African players.
Then, in the most disloyal act of all, Pietersen was caught sending texts to the South African team apparently ridiculing England’s captain, Andrew Strauss. The end result was than Strauss quit, not Pietersen.
In the recent Ashes where England suffered the most ignominious defeat ever, it seems Pietersen defied both captain and coach by repeatedly going out to reckless shots.
In the third test, for example, when dire circumstances demanded a patient innings from England’s best batsman, Pietersen was caught brainlessly trying to smash off-spinner Nathan Lyon for six.
His few supporters say that Pietersen is a free spirit whose natural flair needs to be given free reign. His cannot be ordered to do anything as that curbs his flamboyant style. Maybe – but to the rest of us, that is disloyalty. And it’s patently obvious that Pietersen’s vaunted free spirit is at the root of England’s poor team spirit.
Ironically, Pietersen’s sacking comes at a time when there’s a huge national debate about ‘being English’ – stemming from Scotland’s proposed secession to the waves of immigrants that have washed ashore here and diluted national identity.
It’s a deeply contested debate; no one really knows what ‘Englishness’ means. What they do know is that it’s not just about holding a passport; fellow ex-South African Jonathan Trott is widely respected by English fans. It’s also not about colour; Ravi Bopara is as English as they come. It’s about mindset.
But whatever ‘Englishness’ is, English cricket fans, weaned on the most quintessential of English sports, don’t think Pietersen has it.
They can forgive almost all of his other faults – but not that.
