Kevin Pietersen has played his last first-class match before heading to the Caribbean Premier League, and quite possibly the last of his career. The 34-year-old has opted not to play in Surrey’s next championship fixture against Leicestershire at Grace Road on Sunday, though he will play in a T20 Blast game against Sussex at Arundel a week later.
With chances of a Test recall gone, Pietersen will concentrate on the crash, bang, wallop of Twenty20 having played in this weather-affected draw against the Division Two leaders Lancashire, who would have been the happier of the two teams with the outcome. Pietersen will start his second spell with St Lucia Zouks on 21 June, six days before his 35th birthday, and will sit down with Surrey for talks in late July. It would be a shock to see him batting against a red ball again, however.
“Once he comes back, we will have more discussions,” said Alec Stewart, Surrey’s director of cricket. “I was surprised he played in this game because we’d spoken about what his England opportunities were. It’s not the end. I’m not saying: ‘That’s it, the door’s shut’. It’s always open here. At the same time, we’ll have discussions to see what fits for us and him.
“The arrangement was very much while Colin Graves – whether he did or he didn’t [mean it] – intimated that perhaps that door was open, that’s why we have seen him back playing county cricket. Then it was shut. We didn’t expect to see him again, but he wanted to play this game. We’ve had a good relationship with him, and he said ‘I’m available if you want me to play’. I said ‘we’ll have you’ straightaway.”
If this is to be it in whites, then it ended with a whimper. He left the field 15 minutes before the end of Lancashire’s first innings in the latter stages of the morning before an unbeaten 186-run opening stand between the centurion Rory Burns and Zafar Ansari during the final two sessions of the match prevented him from adding to his two off three balls during Sunday’s first day.
Lancashire now hold a 31-point lead at the top after seven matches, with second-placed Surrey having only played six. The visitors all but killed the match during Tuesday’s third day by passing the follow-on target of 299.
They advanced further during the fourth morning to secure a fifth batting bonus point, with Kyle Jarvis making 47 as he shared in half-century stands for the ninth and 10th wickets with Tom Bailey and Simon Kerrigan. Lancashire’s last four wickets added 321 to recover from 108 for six.
