Its Only Cricket

Filed under England cricket

I remember Mohammad Azharuddin. do you?

That Indian was a tricky batsman with amazing leg-stump skills. You bowl outside off, yet he'll pull or flick you through midwicket. A career that started with 3 consecutive centuries starting his debut, Azharuddin finished in doubtful circumstances as one of most successful captain of Indian cricket team.

Now that you're clear of about whom I'm referring, try recalling how Mohammad Azharuddin used to field. He was off balanced most of times while catching, stopping the ball or even while throwing it to the keeper. Very similar is today's Kevin Pietersen of England. Both in batting style & fielding try. The difference I can find between Azhar's & KP's fielding - is the number of times the former hit the stumps. Azhar was off balanced nearly all the times cause he believed returning the ball as quickly as possible. He could throw even while facing opposite to his target, & was quite accurate too.

Same can't be said about KP though. Pietersen is a fit man in prime body condition, but drops one catch per match (except few exceptions). Reason he drops those easy catches, or mis-fields a simple ball is to do with his foot condition when he has the ball in hand. How to correct that.. well, I'll leave that to better qualified coaches he has with him, but I'll suggest Kevin not to get over exited while the balls' approaching him.

It seems like Kevin Pietersen has more in him as a cricketer, urging him to field even masterfully than he's trained for. Result is disbelief on KP's face, as the ball crosses the boundary.

Another reason can be the attention of Pietersen's attractive lady Jessica, who's always somewhere in the crowed while South Africa born is playing, but I won't go into that. I admit it was Ian Chappell's commentary who brought me to this Kevin's problem but inspiration for an article has to come from somewhere. And now that I've made a written document about it - I hope English cricket authorities will notice it, to correct it, before Peitersen's fielding starts to cost them important & close matches.

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Kevin Pietersen, an off-balanced fielder.