Kevin Pietersen has marked his anticipated England comeback by boldly predicting that
Alastair Cook has the ability to challenge Sachin Tendulkar's world-record number of Test runs.
Tendulkar, with
15837 Test runs,
is more than 2000 ahead of his nearest rival, Ricky Ponting - and he is
not quite finished yet. Cook remains 8000 adrift, although he has
regularly matched Tendulkar at the same stage of his career, leaving
Pietersen no doubt the record is within his compass.
Pietersen, who is expected to return for England on Thursday in the
second T20 international against New Zealand, has always freely admitted
that he has little knowledge of cricket history, which will be a relief
to Cook, who has enough problems to deal with in managing England's
Ashes campaign without being tipped to surpass the most celebrated
living batsman.
Pietersen's accolade for Cook came in the second part of a pre-recorded
interview with Darren Gough on Talksport - an interview which, in
protest at the English media's coverage of his controversial career, he
has billed as his only major pronouncement of the summer.
"His first series was against India away and we beat India," Pietersen
said of Cook. "He's done exceptionally well, his cricket just keeps
getting better and better.
"For me he's the right man to lead England, he's doing a great job for
us and he will continue to get better and better and break every record
anyone's ever set, certainly in the English game. He's on target to go
for Tendulkar's numbers, if you look at the numbers and look at his
age."
Pietersen also offered glowing praise for another colleague who is tipped to have a long and fruitful England career in
Joe Root - not that he was overly aware who the young Yorkshireman joining England on tour for the first time in India last winter was.
"I never knew of him, I never heard of him, because when you're on the
scene and young players come you just don't," he said. "But I knew that
he was going to be good when he walked out to bat in Nagpur in his first
Test match."
By the time Root made his debut England were 2-1 up with one Test to
play and needed to avoid defeat to win their first series in India for
28 years.
"I was batting and… we just didn't want to let India back into it at all
and he walked out and - just his face walking towards me for 20 metres -
I thought this kid's going to be a flipping superstar.
"It was just the confidence that he walked out to bat with in his debut
Test match in India, two spinners bowling, from each end, we'd just lost
a wicket or a couple of wickets and he walked out with a smile on his
face, and went 'All right lad, you ok, you're playing well there.' And I
was like, 'Mate! I've played 90 odd Test matches and I don't walk out
like that.' But it's brilliant for English cricket, absolutely
brilliant."
Pietersen, no stranger to controversy, even expressed admiration for the
way Root handled himself in the wake of the Walkabout bar incident in
Birmingham in the early hours of the morning when David Warner pulled
off a wig Root was wearing and, literally, threw the first punch of the
Ashes summer.
According to Pietersen, the affair was exaggerated by the media - a view
not shared by Cricket Australia, which quickly banned Warner until the
start of the Ashes series. Root was unfazed, though.
"He knew the media were going to be on him all day and he'd had a
haircut - he looked sharp! I think he knows how to deal with it,"
Pietersen said. "I saw him that day and he couldn't believe what was
being made of it, but welcome to English cricket and welcome to how the
media works."
Specifically referring to Wisden's assessment of Pietersen as
"arrogant, self-pitying and isolated", Gough drew attention to the fact
that Pietersen's relationship with the English media is now as unhealthy
as with any player since Tony Greig conspired on behalf of Kerry
Packer's breakaway World Series Cricket in the 1970s.
Pietersen responded: "I've been burnt too many times and it's just a
case of me now concentrating on my cricket and playing my cricket as
best I can because that whole situation hurt my family too much. I get
it all day every day.
"Somebody asked me yesterday, 'Can you take some constructive
criticism?' I said, 'Excuse me? You're talking to somebody who has it
for breakfast, lunch and dinner.' So it doesn't affect me, it's water
off a duck's back now. I have absolutely no interest in it but it hurt
my family and my best mates.
"You go through rocky patches in every walk of life - business,
marriage, as a kid, through your teenage years. In a dressing room not
everyone's going to get on and I know you had altercations in your
dressing room.
"I know some other great players who I speak to in other countries when I
hear the things that go on in other dressing rooms now and it happens,
it's going to happen. Unfortunately it was quite a famous fall out
because of what happened but, no, everything's absolutely fantastic, we
showed that in India the way we got on and played well and beat India in
India.
"I just want to get the best out of my talent. I just live for each day,
I play each day. I go out and try new things. I've got that
personality, that impatient personality, that wants to try things, wants
to do things, wants to achieve things and I'll never stop trying."
Pietersen also has ambitions to follow the footballer David Beckham and
his wife Victoria into the fashion industry. "These last three months
that I've been injured I've had quite a bit of time on my hands to sort
the business side of life out," he said. "I am heavily involved in a
clothing company and a footwear company in India. I've got some
different stuff, other things on the horizon that I'm negotiating,
talking about and signing off."