I have sympathy for Pietersen but Tests must be his priority

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UPDATED:

21:03 GMT, 7 August 2012

My first reaction when I saw what
Kevin Pietersen had said on Monday at Headingley was that he is in a
unique situation — and one which should stop us rushing to judgment.

I’m not just talking about his
batting, which — as we saw at Headingley — can be not just out of this
world but occasionally on another planet. I’m also talking about the
bloke: he loves razzmatazz and he loves being the centre of attention.
Basically, he is a bit different from his team-mates.

So, when he says it is not easy being
him, I have some sympathy. English cricket has never seen anything like
Kevin: he is brilliant and marketable in a way that none of his
contemporaries in this country can live with.

He looks around the world and sees
other big names cashing in at the IPL and he wants a chunk of it. Do I
blame him for wanting to earn $2million for seven weeks’ work No, I do
not.

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And I have sympathy with the argument
that the ECB should be prepared to be flexible. Man-management would be
an easy game if you could just treat everyone the same.

If I had treated Darren Gough and Andy Caddick the same way when I was captain, all hell would have broken loose.

But where I draw the line with the
argument about flexibility is if Pietersen wants to miss Test matches so
he can play in the IPL.

It is one thing to allow him to go
freelance but it would be totally unacceptable if he missed, say, the
home Tests against New Zealand next summer because he was playing for
Delhi Daredevils, then walked back into the dressing room for the Ashes
as if it was business as usual.

That would infuriate Andy Flower and
it would be disrespectful to the other players. Call me old-fashioned,
but Test cricket is the pinnacle of the game.

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People make comparisons with
Pietersen’s big buddy Chris Gayle, who fell out with the West Indies
board and spent a year or so travelling the world playing Twenty20
before returning to the fold, which I’m sure is what Pietersen would
like to do.

But Gayle was not very well looked after by his board — either from a financial or a man-management point of view — and Pietersen cannot say England have not looked after him well. They have. In fact, they have helped make him what he is today. And what gets me is that he has not really come out and said what is bothering him. He has been talking in too many riddles. It would make everyone’s life easier — including, probably, his own — if he just came out with it and said: ‘I want to be like the other stars of the world game and be allowed to play a full IPL season.’

But he keeps saying it’s about the schedule, not the money. So why don’t the ECB call his bluff and say, ‘Fine, if it’s about the schedule, you can have the rest of the summer off after the Tests, but we want you for the World Twenty20 and we want you for the New Zealand Tests’.

If he objects to that, then we will really know it is all about the IPL. And, if he puts that before Test cricket, England will have no option but to cut their ties with one of the biggest draws our game has known.