KP: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Kevin Pietersen
Sphere
324 pages; Rs 799
"I don't do comfort zones, and if I feel you are the kind of person who enjoys the comfort-zone way of life I tell you." This line appears around the middle of Kevin Pietersen's KP: The Autobiography, but it might as well have been the first line of the book, or the last. From the very first paragraph you have an astonishingly candid batsman speaking his mind about the way his country's cricket board, the England and Wales Cricket Board, or ECB, runs the sport.
And unlike the stories written about their careers by top batsmen, Pietersen's tales are not tame, sanitised narrations of what happened on the middle of the pitch. Controversy's child, right from his choosing England over his country of birth, South Africa, to play his cricket for to his outspoken words and tweets on happenings in the inner chambers of English cricket, Pietersen undoubtedly had a chequered time as one of the England's, and the world's, top batsmen. When you read his book, you realise that the fluidity of his stroke-making was in inverse proportion to the smoothness of his relations with the powers that be, the strength of his shots a contrast to his mentality that required, by his own admission, a lot of pampering. Obviously, he didn't get that, and so we get a 324-page Jeremiad.
But was it all the ECB's fault or was Pietersen, as the side's premier batsman, expecting extra special treatment and did not get it? The book gives us the batsman's story. Perhaps someday somebody in the ECB will write a rejoinder. We can only hope that it is at least as entertaining and as readable as Pietersen's j'accuse. Take this paragraph on Andy Flower, the England coach with whom Pietersen had a particularly troubled relationship. Was the phrase "minced no words" meant for any other written piece? "Andy Flower. Contagiously sour. Infectiously dour. He could walk into a room and suck all the joy out of it in five seconds. Just a Mood Hoover. That's how I came to think of him: the Mood Hoover." I smile to think of what Hoover, the vacuum company, made of Pietersen's imagery.
The English batsman's decision to play in the Indian Premier League (IPL) was a grating stone that constantly frayed the tenuous link he had with his board. In a narrative that is non-linear, he regularly returns to the theme of money versus sport. For Pietersen, the IPL represented a fascinating competition among the globe's best players and a rare chance to make friends with others who plied the same trade. To the ECB, the IPL was an abhorrent exercise that transmogrified gentlemen cricketers into mean mercenaries. "Whenever the IPL comes up in conversation, you can feel the room grow uneasy. I say that I love India and I love the IPL. Love it. Under their breath they say, yeah I bet he does. A man like that, he's bought and he stays bought." But beyond this stance, he knows that the English players would love to play in India and earn a bit of money. At another place, he takes on the mercenary charge full on: "A gentleman doesn't talk about money. I should be embarrassed about the things. But money is important. I am a sportsman with a very limited shelf life … I have a family to support and I simply can't say no to the sort of money the IPL offers when I don't know what's around the corner." Would any other cricketer speak so honestly about the millions he earns?
Pietersen argues the ECB is hypocritical about the money thing. He points out how acutely sensitive it is to anything that might endanger its sources of money. Once he tweeted that former batsman Nick Knight was a "ridiculous" commentator on Sky Sports and got fined £3,000 by the board. Why, when Graeme Swann had similarly vilified Pietersen in his book and had not been pulled up? The answer: "Sky and the ECB are tight. £260 million of Sky's money was riding on a rights contract with the ECB … . So if Sky told the ECB that one of their players couldn't say mean things about a Sky commentator, I imagine the reaction of the ECB would be to ask if Sky wanted me publicly executed or discreetly disappeared."
But besides the entertaining fulminations, including a lot of four-letter words (mostly beginning with "F") against the selectors, the coach and his captain Andrew Strauss, Pietersen's book also reveals a lot about his vulnerabilities (particularly his family, his desire to be with whom caused a number of bust-ups with his coach and captain), his friendships and, of course, cricket, especially what goes on in the English dressing room. There is a section where he talks about his weakness against spin and how he first used a bunch of left-arm net bowlers in Bangladesh to curb his predominantly leg-side proclivity and then taking the advice of better players of spin. He has reproduced the email that Rahul Dravid sent him on the subject, a typically warm-hearted Dravidian advisory on what to do when facing spin. The Englishman says he often reads that mail and smiles to himself.
Is Pietersen violating the players' code by putting into public domain the things that take place in the dressing room? He might be. But as he says right at the beginning, "I don't march in step. I don't ask people to trample all over me because it might make them feel better. That's not who I am." Read KP: The Autobiography and you know Kevin Pietersen is not quite your regular guy in white.
Kevin Pietersen
Sphere
324 pages; Rs 799
"I don't do comfort zones, and if I feel you are the kind of person who enjoys the comfort-zone way of life I tell you." This line appears around the middle of Kevin Pietersen's KP: The Autobiography, but it might as well have been the first line of the book, or the last. From the very first paragraph you have an astonishingly candid batsman speaking his mind about the way his country's cricket board, the England and Wales Cricket Board, or ECB, runs the sport.
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And unlike the stories written about their careers by top batsmen, Pietersen's tales are not tame, sanitised narrations of what happened on the middle of the pitch. Controversy's child, right from his choosing England over his country of birth, South Africa, to play his cricket for to his outspoken words and tweets on happenings in the inner chambers of English cricket, Pietersen undoubtedly had a chequered time as one of the England's, and the world's, top batsmen. When you read his book, you realise that the fluidity of his stroke-making was in inverse proportion to the smoothness of his relations with the powers that be, the strength of his shots a contrast to his mentality that required, by his own admission, a lot of pampering. Obviously, he didn't get that, and so we get a 324-page Jeremiad.
But was it all the ECB's fault or was Pietersen, as the side's premier batsman, expecting extra special treatment and did not get it? The book gives us the batsman's story. Perhaps someday somebody in the ECB will write a rejoinder. We can only hope that it is at least as entertaining and as readable as Pietersen's j'accuse. Take this paragraph on Andy Flower, the England coach with whom Pietersen had a particularly troubled relationship. Was the phrase "minced no words" meant for any other written piece? "Andy Flower. Contagiously sour. Infectiously dour. He could walk into a room and suck all the joy out of it in five seconds. Just a Mood Hoover. That's how I came to think of him: the Mood Hoover." I smile to think of what Hoover, the vacuum company, made of Pietersen's imagery.
The English batsman's decision to play in the Indian Premier League (IPL) was a grating stone that constantly frayed the tenuous link he had with his board. In a narrative that is non-linear, he regularly returns to the theme of money versus sport. For Pietersen, the IPL represented a fascinating competition among the globe's best players and a rare chance to make friends with others who plied the same trade. To the ECB, the IPL was an abhorrent exercise that transmogrified gentlemen cricketers into mean mercenaries. "Whenever the IPL comes up in conversation, you can feel the room grow uneasy. I say that I love India and I love the IPL. Love it. Under their breath they say, yeah I bet he does. A man like that, he's bought and he stays bought." But beyond this stance, he knows that the English players would love to play in India and earn a bit of money. At another place, he takes on the mercenary charge full on: "A gentleman doesn't talk about money. I should be embarrassed about the things. But money is important. I am a sportsman with a very limited shelf life … I have a family to support and I simply can't say no to the sort of money the IPL offers when I don't know what's around the corner." Would any other cricketer speak so honestly about the millions he earns?
Pietersen argues the ECB is hypocritical about the money thing. He points out how acutely sensitive it is to anything that might endanger its sources of money. Once he tweeted that former batsman Nick Knight was a "ridiculous" commentator on Sky Sports and got fined £3,000 by the board. Why, when Graeme Swann had similarly vilified Pietersen in his book and had not been pulled up? The answer: "Sky and the ECB are tight. £260 million of Sky's money was riding on a rights contract with the ECB … . So if Sky told the ECB that one of their players couldn't say mean things about a Sky commentator, I imagine the reaction of the ECB would be to ask if Sky wanted me publicly executed or discreetly disappeared."
But besides the entertaining fulminations, including a lot of four-letter words (mostly beginning with "F") against the selectors, the coach and his captain Andrew Strauss, Pietersen's book also reveals a lot about his vulnerabilities (particularly his family, his desire to be with whom caused a number of bust-ups with his coach and captain), his friendships and, of course, cricket, especially what goes on in the English dressing room. There is a section where he talks about his weakness against spin and how he first used a bunch of left-arm net bowlers in Bangladesh to curb his predominantly leg-side proclivity and then taking the advice of better players of spin. He has reproduced the email that Rahul Dravid sent him on the subject, a typically warm-hearted Dravidian advisory on what to do when facing spin. The Englishman says he often reads that mail and smiles to himself.
Is Pietersen violating the players' code by putting into public domain the things that take place in the dressing room? He might be. But as he says right at the beginning, "I don't march in step. I don't ask people to trample all over me because it might make them feel better. That's not who I am." Read KP: The Autobiography and you know Kevin Pietersen is not quite your regular guy in white.