KP IS A SOUTHPAW’S WALKING WICKET

This article appeared in The Times of 23 November

KP IS A SOUTHPAW’S WALKING WICKET

FRANK HEYDENRYCH
Xavier Doherty has yet to play Test cricket, whereas Nathan Hauritz has played 13 Tests, taking 58 wickets at an average of around 32. Yet Doherty has displaced Hauritz ahead of the first Ashes Test starting Thursday at the Gabba for one simple reason: he bowls conventional left-arm spin. Which means he is all but guaranteed Kevin Pietersen’s wicket in both innings, and that means England’s middle order is under pressure.
Andrew Hilditch and his fellow selectors have been pilloried Down Under, but this is a smart move. For more than a year now, KP has not been able to get a run the moment a southpaw bowler comes on. The sequence of dismissals is spectacular, and they cut across all continents, all forms of the game, all quality of bowlers.
He came to South Africa to “find form” and retreated with his tail between his legs, as vulnerable to slow left-arm as he had been in every prior game for the previous 12 months, 20-year-old Dale Deeb among those to claim his wicket. In the most recent game, against Australia A, a part-time leftie dismissed KP, bowled, in a 500-runfest where only KP failed, bowled for 5. In Bangladesh, he fell repeatedly to such luminaries as Shakib Al Hassan, Abdur Razzak and Mehrab Hossain, jnr.
It is well worth looking at any scorecard on Cricinfo, right-clicking the name of the bowler who has dismissed Maritzburg’s most bombastic export, and checking his bowling style, and you’re likely time and again to find it was a slow left-armer – of any kind – who has stuck him.
It is highly instructive that neither batting coach Graham Gooch nor director of cricket Andy Flower can turn this tide of terrible tweaker dismissals.
The Ashes loom, and KP’s arrogance means he won’t correct it. What should he do, if he were to actually listen to anyone? Well, his firm left-footed prod down the wicket and his tendency to play across the line to leg mean he exposes his front or back pad, or reduces the bat-face surface to a ball turning across him. The slower the bowler, the less chance he has of making contact, so he is either LBW or bowled. A return to basics, as Hashim Amla did, would do the trick:
play down the right line, not inside it, get to the pitch, smother the turn, take singles, work the ball around for an hour, play with a straight bat in front of the pad.
Chances are he won’t get this or any advice, he’ll be Doherty’s bunny, and out of the Ashes series by the New Year. And that could be vital to England’s hopes of Ashes success.