KP Signs Off, 'Boots Up, Thank You'

It is hardly disputable that Pietersen brought a robust, aggressive attitude and a nuanced, classic yet equally innovative approach to batting...

- Sreelata S. Yellamrazu

Kevin Pietersen has found a new preoccupation. He is done defending himself and his loyalties. After a glorious Test career and a chequered time with English cricket, Pietersen has turned to other interests – saving the wild, one at a time.

After years of peddling his flair through the booming Twenty20 era, Pietersen, at thirty-seven years of age, feels like he had had enough of playing the game he loved so much to go as far as to switch loyalties. Switching allegiance from South African where he learnt the game to England, which he inherited from his mother’s side, endeared him to neither. But that did not stop him from creating a rich legacy in Test cricket for England which even they cannot deny albeit grudgingly.

While Pietersen’s cricket career trails off into the sunset on the back of his playing days as a Twenty20 specialist – the final one being his turning up for the Quetta Gladiators in the Pakistan Super League, something he would not have imagined at the height of his ambition - ironically he is one of the few international cricketers to have set Test cricket ablaze with his own achievements and also, raising a rather fierce, competitive profile of England unaccustomed in recent years.