Does England Really Need Kevin Pietersen?

It has mainly been a summer to forget for England’s maverick star batsmen Kevin Pietersen. It all came about after an interview straight after the Second Test Match against South Africa on August 4^th where he scored an incredible 149 runs to virtually assure a stalemate in this rain affected match.

After the match when interviewed by Jonathan Agnew as part of the Test Match Special team he states that “it’s tough being in this dressing room” and admits he could be considering retiring from test cricket after the Third Test. This fractures his relations within the rest of the England dressing room.

Following on from the pre match interview, a week later various newspapers reveal that Kevin Pietersen had sent derogatory texts to several South African players about Andre Strauss. This made his position in the England team subsequently unattainable until he apologised. This text saga severely affected the harmony among the rest of the team and ultimately ended in the resignation and retirement of Andrew Strauss.

Following on from month of discussion and countless meetings the (ECB) English Cricket Board and Pietersen came to an agreement and he signed a four month central contract in all form of crickets.

This does however, include a period of integration with the rest of the team in a view to being named as a late addition to India test tour party if talks with the rest of the team go smoothly.

Former England Captain, Michael Vaughan said “The issue is, can Kevin Pietersen be allowed back in that dressing room?

“Now he has he got a four month trial period and the only way to find out is to go into the dressing room, make a speech and get round with some of the players he has had issues with, and have a beer.

The question is do England really need Kevin Pietersen in their team in this very important year which starts with a Tour of India and ends in back to back Ashes series against Australia. They would need him to be fully committed to the cause and not have his head turned by the chance to earn millions by playing in Indian Premier League.

He has supposedly committed himself to the cause by stating

“ I’m committed to completing the reintegration process we have agreed and representing England in all formats’ hopefully until the World Cup in 2015 if my body allows”.

Even though he is a top class batsmen he isn’t going to be able to walk straight back into the team if he comes back into the team soon it would most probably be at expense of Ravi Bopara who has consistently underperformed on the test circuit. Kevin Pietersen fits in very well at number four in the team, he has constantly been someone who has steadied the batting when things haven’t always gone to plan. I wouldn’t put him at Number 2 in the batting line up as i am sure England have worthy replacement for Strauss in Nick Compton. Nick Compton excelled over the summer by scoring the most runs in county cricket so he fully deserved his chance.

In the long run i think it would be best if England to have Kevin Pietersen in their starting line up as he has a lot of experience and can help nurture young players who are now in the squad such as Jonny Bairstow and James Taylor. If the determined Kevin Pietersen comes back then cricket fans all over the world get to grace the international batting masterclass once again and the Aussies will ultimately find it tough to regain the Ashes for the first time since 2007. If only they had sorted their differences out earlier maybe it would have been Stuart Broad holding the T20 trophy aloft rather than the West Indies Captain Chris Gayle.