Kevin Pietersen's dismissal by Nathan Hauritz was one of "his more extraordinary innings - and the competition for that accolade is pretty intense", writes Simon Barnes in the Times. He made 69, but threw his wicket away to Australia's decidedly average spinner.
"The thing about Pietersen is that he's prepared to take on anyone and that doesn't stop at Australia bowlers. He will also do battle with his own nature. Pietersen took on Brett Lee in that insane innings that secured England the Ashes four years ago; yesterday we saw Pietersen in a pitched battle against his own egomania."
Barnes pinpoints the existential conflict within Pietersen: "The war in his breast is between his desire to show off on the day and his desire for sporting greatness that lasts for all time. He wants to be the flashiest, the prettiest, the most spectacular; he also wants to be remembered as one of the finest players that picked up a cricket bat."
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Understandably, "this causes a clash". And one that Australian captain Ricky Ponting was smart enough to pick up on. Bringing on Hauritz to "send down over after over of not terribly brilliant off spin and you kept waiting for Pietersen to smack him into the River Taff as a matter of principle. Except he didn't."
"It was as if Ricky Ponting, the Australia captain, had deliberately engineered this Pietersen v Pietersen battle. He was saying: 'I bet you can't resist. I bet you'll chuck your wicket away in some daft crowd-pleaser of a shot. I bet you haven't got the patience.' And Pietersen was replying: 'Oh yes I have. I am so much more than what you think. I have depths that you lot can't begin to plumb.'"
And then, of course, Hauritz got him, mistiming his sweep and ballooning up a catch to Katich at short leg. "It was Hauritz that got him, and that really adds to the pain. To be out to a great ball from a great bowler is one thing; Hauritz is not a foe worthy of Pietersen's steel."
Barnes concludes that Pietersen's strengths come from playing his natural game, not from digging in and playing for the team. Kevin Pietersen is "a rock’n’roll cricketer with ambitions to be Beethoven."
