Transcending boundaries

Kevin Pietersen is unlikely to feel goodwill back in South Africa when he leads England against the country of his birth.

MUMBAI // When Kevin Pietersen leads England out for the first time in a Test match against the country of his birth at the Oval today, there is unlikely to be an outpouring of goodwill towards him back in South Africa. Pietersen turned his back on his homeland in 2000, citing what he felt was a racist and unfair quota selection policy as his reason for leaving, and qualified for England instead.

The hate felt towards the Pietermaritzburg-born batsmen, who some perceived as a mercenary and a turncoat, may have subsided - but he is still regarded with ambivalence, at best, back in Africa. "It won't be a big thing back home," claimed Shaun Pollock, the former Proteas captain-turned-commentator, who tried to talk Pietersen out of moving to England in 1999. "We've more than accepted it and moved on from that state of mind. They'll understand he has gone."

Yet there are those in South Africa who are sympathetic to his cause. According to his former coach, Andrew Shedlock, Pietersen deserves all the success that has come his way since he packed his bags and left South Africa. "He made a choice - the correct one in my view," said Shedlock. "People often ask, 'If he had stayed in South Africa, would he have made it?' "We will never know, but he has stuck to his choice and made it big. Who can deny what he has done?

"When you make a choice to play for another country, it is difficult. For him to succeed in England, over and above his ability he had to back himself. "That is what Kevin is really good at. We can't deny where he has got to. He is unbelievable." Shedlock was one of the few people to welcome Pietersen back, after he first rejected his homeland. He was a pariah and Shedlock recalls: "When Kevin used to come back from England, he wasn't too popular in South Africa at that stage.

"I was head coach of the Natal Academy, and Kevin would come and ask if I wouldn't mind working with him. "He was always a confident young kid. He knew he was going to make it. He would come home prior to the English season, and I would work with him one-on-one, doing throw-downs. "I would come down and spend 30 minutes in the nets with him throwing balls at him, getting him ready for the English summer. I've always known him as a confident kid.

"In our school system, you leave when you are 18. He left when he was 17, so he was pretty young. He had made the Natal Schools B side in the national league. "But he said, no, he was tired of playing with these youngsters, and he wanted to go and play with the older boys. "A lot of people said that was arrogance, but to be a top-class sportsman nowadays, you have to have some form of arrogance. Confidence plays a huge part.

"He has been exceptional for world cricket. Sport needs characters and he is one of those. He will go down as one of the best. Good luck to him." Shedlock's influence is now being felt in youth cricket in the UAE. He was in the Emirates last month to conduct a coaching clinic with the Young Talents Cricket Academy (YTCA). He is the latest in a long line of prominent coaches to have helped out at the country's most prolific cricketing finishing school. The list includes the ex-Pakistan coach Mushtaq Mohammed, India's bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad and the late Bob Woolmer. Shedlock, who is Darryl Cullinan's assistant with the Indian Cricket League side Kolkata Tigers, is planning to set up an exchange scheme between the YTCA and his own academy back home in Natal.

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