“Before I met Jeanine,” Spinal Tap’s David St Hubbins once reflected, “my life was cosmically a shambles. I was using bits and pieces of whatever eastern philosophy would drift through my transom.”
I imagine Kevin Pietersen was much the same before settling down himself, in the years when he was spiritually advised by the discredited former Hampshire maharishi Shane Warne and his ilk. But to follow Kevin’s social media output these days is to feel much of the same easy serenity and self-awareness that characterised St Hubbins. In the metaphorical airport bookshop of our lives, Pietersen’s coordinates place him midway between the third-tier business manuals and the Mind Body Spirit section.
He is frequently on hand with a well-chosen inspirational quote – albeit one chosen by the algorithm on mywellchoseninspirationalquote.com – which I imagine him posting immediately after having intoned it at himself in the bathroom mirror. Recent thinkbombs? “Invest in yourself, it pays the best interest.” “Make yourself a priority. At the end of the day, you’re your longest commitment.” “When a flower doesn’t bloom you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.” “Tetris taught me that when you try to fit in, you disappear.” And the searing: “Hard butter in aeroplanes & restaurants really piss me off.”
Yet even by Kevin’s own standards of introspection, the latest one offers an unsparing glimpse into his process. He announces: “97 per cent of the people who gave up too quickly are employed by the 3 per cent that never gave up.”
Well. What a self-deprecating comment that can only be on Pietersen’s revelation that he might once more make himself available for selection by South Africa. For any South African selectors who never gave up hope of renationalising the Kevin Pietersen industry, his recent interview on the subject will feel like a vindication. Having given up on his homeland early in his career, England’s leading run-scorer across all three formats may seek employment by South Africa in 2018.
By way of a recap, Kevin last weekend revealed: “Yes, it is a thought in my head … The eligibility for South Africa is still a year away [sic]. So we will have to wait and see.” He added that an England call-up “is definitely still an option”. If you’re drinking Bacardi.
And yet, let’s not be too hasty. Clearly, the temptation is to regard this as the latest savagely self-parodic throw of the dice by Pietersen, the Bonnie Prince Charlie of English cricket. After all, attempts to restore the Batsman Over the Water to his rightful place in the England side have now been commuted down to an annual lunch in St James’s and one historical re-enactment in the car park of a Surrey carvery.
But attempts to cast him as a spokesmodel for national identity rights could well be in their infancy. Last year, the discovery that an American black rights activist named Rachel Dolezal was in fact white introduced a sceptical audience to the idea that someone could identify as “transracial”. And admittedly, well over 97% of that audience remains sceptical. Even so, I think the most sensitive way to handle Kevin’s interview in this day and age is to consider the possibility that he may well identify as “transnational”.
Certainly his marital friendship circles seem to have introduced him to new thinking on the idea of second acts. It was only last weekend that TV singing competition The Voice was won by his wife’s former bandmate in Liberty X (another 35-year-old called Kevin). Liberty X, you are unlikely to recall, had itself been formed from the mechanically-recovered runners-up in a TV singing competition. Today, TV singing competitions have so totally vertically integrated that they are presented and judged by people who have won those same TV singing competitions in previous years. So it is no surprise to find TV singing shows won by people who have already had careers off the back of winning TV singing shows. Throughout the series, Liberty X’s Kevin’s rebrand was enthusiastically punted by the other Kevin, who lost no opportunity to declare himself “#TEAMKEVIN”. (Plus ça change, etc.) It isn’t beyond the realms to imagine him taking inspiration from this other reincarnated 35-year‑old. Why shouldn’t Kevin Pietersen come back as a South African?
No one is suggesting that there wouldn’t be a few adjustments to be made, not least in the field of dated body art. Pietersen’s three lions tattoo always felt like a massive badge-kiss anyway, but one that in the modern age really needn’t be tying. When Johnny Depp split with Winona Ryder he famously had his Winona Forever tattoo modified to read Wino Forever; Liam Gallagher blanketed his Patsy inking in some Elvis-based monstrosity, and Cheryl Tweedy-as-was remains a constant work in progress. (A military history saying declares that generals always fight the last war; tattooists will tell you Cheryl’s inker is always fighting the last marriage.) So yes, the three lions could quite easily be subsumed by a massive protea – or perhaps simply the ANC flag.
The main thing to remember, as far as the eternal Kevin Pietersen story goes, is that there are no real international retirements. There are only international debuts that have yet to happen.
