The Papers' Take On Captain KP

Pietersen - Not English Enough?

After the expected was confirmed that 'The Ego' otherwise known as Kevin Pietersen has landed the captaincy gig, Fleet Street's changed their tune, claiming that perhaps KP is too South African or too hard-headed to do a solid job and perhaps the English head honchos should gamble less...

'Despite Kevin Pietersen's many qualities, we must be doing something wrong if we have to look outside our pool of native-born players. Jolly good luck to Kevin Pietersen as he leads England out to face a rampant South Africa - the team for whom, had he not run away from a positive-discrimination policy in which he saw no certainty of personal reward, he would have been playing.

So there we have him, posing alongside his mates - Vaughany, Freddie, a couple of others - in a Hugo Boss male grooming ad, wearing a singlet and with his shoulder turned so that the camera can see the three lions tattooed on his left biceps. It is the very image of success, just like the ones with which the marketeers attempted to turn another England team into commercial icons after their victory in the 2003 Rugby World Cup.' - Richard Williams, The Guardian.

'The fact that Pietersen has an English mother, an English wife, has served his qualification period and has committed himself to England for life will not sway opinions.

He is just too brash, too money-oriented, too celebrity-conscious and just too 'un-English' for some tastes. They see an ambitious man who speaks his mind and has not been afraid to ruffle feathers during his ascent from club cricket with Cannock to international cricket, via a fractious spell with Nottinghamshire, where he felt his drive and ambition were not matched by those around him. Indeed, the South Africans call him 'The Ego'.

Well, those doubters will have to get used to the idea. I believe he will be an outstanding captain. He has a sharp cricket brain suited to leadership and a presence that all good captains have. He will be tactically astute and will lead by example; he will also be a better man manager than some fear.' - Paul Newman, The Daily Mail.

Ingratiating tattoos and silly haircuts cannot hide a talent born to succeed. It would be pushing it a bit to suggest that when Kevin Pietersen became the captain of England yesterday he was fulfilling his destiny, if it is possible to behave with decorum while sporting a raccoon-style barnet, he has done so at all times. He is a driven man, sure of his own ability and his place in the scheme of things.

What sets Pietersen apart, why it just might work with him doing this most English of jobs, is that he is one of those people who makes things happen. It comes from talent, a sense of self-belief (a streak, dare one say to be found in many South Africans) and single-mindedness.

Pietersen should be greeted with cheerfulness and he said all the right things yesterday. There is the potential for it all to go wrong, but there are many more reasons, including a switch hit and a switch personality, for it to go right.' - Stephen Brenkley, The Independent.

'Geoff Miller and Hugh Morris are not renowned as reckless gamblers, rather one a slightly dour northerner who tells winsome jokes on the after-dinner circuit, the other a nuggety and down-to-earth Welshman. Yesterday, though, as they installed Kevin Pietersen into the highest cricketing office in the land, they were taking their biggest gamble ever.

The essence of the gamble is whether the demands of the job - and not only one job but three - will reduce his productiveness, potency and sheer brilliance as a player. Pietersen at his best is uninhibited and instinctive.

Nobody knows how this will play out, not Pietersen himself, not the selectors who picked him and not this correspondent. Given that, is it a risk worth taking? I would say no on the basis that the downside is greater than the potential upside. Nor is it clear why the selectors are desperate for one man to do all three jobs. Michael Vaughan, about as good a captain as it gets, became exhausted during the past year doing just one of them. In time, I would not be surprised to see not only separate captains but separate coaches, too, for forms of the game that demand entirely different qualities.

It is often forgotten that a captain is no magician. There are many things he can control, such as the style of cricket he wants his team to play, the personnel in that team and how they gel together.

Good luck, then, to him as he embarks on the next stage of his remarkable journey. It is an enormous undertaking and he will need all his inner toughness to succeed. I hope I'm wrong, but I have a horrible feeling that this is going to end in tears. But, then again, as Vaughan showed on Sunday, it always ends in tears.' - Mike Atherton, The Times.

'Pietersen is a batsman of the Twenty20 generation. He forces the issue, where others might be content to sit in the game.

Under his captaincy, it is hard to see England probing away with an attritional game-plan. It is more likely that "Over the top, lads!" will be the message to the troops.

Pietersen and Vaughan may be great friends, but they are very different men. There is a timeless quality to Vaughan's play; he has a silky cover drive that would have done justice to Peter May and looks completely at home in cream flannels.

Pietersen, by contrast, is a product of the pyjama age, a 21st century sportsman in polyester pants. With his pop-star wife, his diamond earrings and his gleaming smile, he is cricket's answer to David Beckham.

Over the coming weeks and months, Pietersen will have plenty of opportunity to plot and plan, though the immediate challenge of South Africa at the Oval may have come around a little too soon.

Five years ago, Vaughan floundered in his first Test as captain, just a couple of days after Nasser Hussain had resigned at Edgbaston in eerily similar circumstances.

Even he, one suspects, is still working out how he will go about dealing with his team-mates. Take Ian Bell, for instance: will Pietersen say: "You're playing beautifully, China, just keep going and the scores will come." Or will he say: "Come on, Belly, you can't keep on throwing it away like this, sort it out."

In the fans' eyes, a captain is defined by what he does on the pitch. But the real work goes on behind the scenes. That is where Mike Brearley, a man famously said to have a degree in people, proved his worth. And that is where Pietersen will face his greatest challenge.' - Simon Briggs, The Telegraph.