Pietersen to see Ashes through with pain-killers

LONDON - Kevin Pietersen will have to rely on pain-killing injections to see him through the Ashes series after he ruled out the long break he would need to cure the problem.

Pietersen said he woke up last Friday, the morning of the World Twenty20 match against Holland, and could hardly walk.

“I couldn’t walk down the stairs of my home,” the former England captain was quoted as saying in The Guardian Tuesday.

“It was a huge shock because everything had been going to plan and I’d been playing pain free in the warm-ups. It was as frustrating as anything because I love playing for England and hate missing games.

“I then had intensive treatment and it’s been diagnosed as a back problem that affects the achilles. There’s nothing wrong with the tendon as such. So I’ve had an injection in the nerve that runs down there and it seems to have settled it down.”

The England batsman said he must nurse his back injury knowing it could return at any time and force him to the sidelines.

The only way to relieve the problem is a few months’ rest, something the England team can ill afford at the moment.

“What cures it is two or three months out of the game and that just ain’t happening. It is impossible to take a break like that. The only way it would happen would be to tear a tendon or a hamstring or something like that. I don’t want to put my hand up for that kind of rest.”

The problem for Pietersen is when, with a crowded calendar, to take the time off for the injury to heal. He does not want to miss any cricket and certainly it is difficult to imagine him skipping the tour of his native South Africa starting November. Then there is the inaugural Champions League in October when Pietersen is due to captain the Bangalore Royal Challengers.