Soul searching KP is bad news for Australia ahead of Ashes

SYDNEY - England’s star batsman Kevin Pietersen has arrived in Australia with his game in working order and purpose renewed, according to noted columnist Peter Roebuck.

“He comes back not as the frustrated boy out to prove a point but as a committed champion determined to demonstrate that the early period of astonishing achievement was merely the beginning,” Roebuck writes in his column for the Sydney Morning Herald.

“He has made the right moves. Now comes the execution, and the revelation,” Roebuck adds.

He believes that Pietersen’s decision to go back to basics has allowed him to rediscover his focus since his forgettable role in the 2009 Ashes.

Pietersen is a cricketer in search of his game and a man in search of his life. At last he is starting to look in the right places. After two years spent in self-indulgent folly he has gone back to work. Last month he returned to his roots in Pietermaritzburg and played two matches for KwaZulu Natal. Evidently his mind is working properly again. Now he is working hard with his comrades in Perth, Roebuck says.

“By the look of things, the worst is behind him. He is a batsman of great deeds but not yet confirmed greatness. He has realised it is not enough. In the nick of time ambition has been rekindled,” he adds.

At 30, Pietersen ought to be approaching the most productive period of his career. By and large batsmen reach their peaks between the ages of 27 and 35, when the brain has calmed down and while the eyes retain their luster.

Careers follow a predictable path, from natural ability, to setbacks and the knowledge it brings and onto the simpler world beyond, he concludes. (ANI)