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Business News/ Opinion / The perpetual outsider
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The perpetual outsider

To understand Englishness, it is important to understand ironywhere what you say is not what you mean

Kevin Pietersen. Photo: AFPPremium
Kevin Pietersen. Photo: AFP

Like a recurring nightmare, Kevin Pietersen continues to haunt the English cricket establishment. They thought they had seen the last of him when they sacked him after the disastrous Ashes defeat even though he was England’s second-highest scorer in the series. But the South Africa-born batsman who has scored more runs than any English batsman except Graham Gooch, Alec Stewart, Alastair Cook, and David Gower, and scored more centuries than anyone except Cook, has not taken his removal lightly. In a bitter autobiography, he has settled scores with his former team-mates and managers whom he sees as tormentors who bullied him.

Pietersen’s ouster has much to do with his perpetual status as the outsider. His loyalty was always suspected, more so after he exchanged text messages with South African cricketers which ridiculed his English team-mates. His commitment to the team was questioned too.

To be sure, foreign-born players don’t find it easy in England. When they do well, the English—or the British—embrace them; but when they lose, or fall to hard times, the applause subsides quickly.

There is a famous 2011 television comic sketch in which the children of the sit-com Outnumbered spot the tennis star Andy Murray, who had yet to reach the Wimbledon final in 2012 or win at the centre court in 2013. The kids ask Murray if he is Scottish or British. Murray says: “When I win I’m British, when I lose, I’m Scottish." Other athletes would find it familiar. Linford Christie, who won many European and World championships including an Olympic gold medal in 1992 at Barcelona, was the pride of Britain until allegations surfaced that he had taken drugs. At that time some British newspapers began referring to him as “Jamaica-born," as if to distance the island from the athlete. Greg Rusedski won more international tennis titles than Tim Henman, England’s heartthrob, but that wasn’t enough for him to win similar adulation, and when he got into arguments with umpires, we were reminded that he was Canadian-born.

And there is the apocryphal story of the Nobel Laureate, T.S. Eliot: When he finally got British citizenship, he is known to have exclaimed: “At last, I am an Englishman," at which, one of his friends promptly reminded him that all he had become was a British subject. You are only born an Englishman; you can’t become one. As Cecil Rhodes said once, if you are an Englishman, you have won the first prize in the lottery of life.

Pietersen was eager to prove himself; keen to please, and yearned for accolades. When he did well, he grinned and revelled. English schoolboys don’t do that—they don’t reveal their effort if they are talented. To understand Englishness, it is important to understand the importance of irony—where what you say is not what you mean; often it is the reverse. Ironic self-deprecation can actually be quite arrogant.

The ability to laugh at oneself and not to take oneself seriously is tied up with self-confidence. A fine example of apparently effortless excellence is David Gower. The English also applaud the one not so talented who works hard to do well—think here of Paul Collingwood.

In England, cricket remains that meadow game with a fair name firmly associated with the upper class with its traditions and myths of fairplay and decency—you applaud you opponent’s boundary; you don’t question the umpire.

But much of cricket on the ground today is influenced by what happens beyond the boundary. Enter Kevin Pietersen, who exults in his glorious strokeplay; who stands at the centre of the pitch, his arms spread out, one carrying his bat high, his head looking skyward, the other hand holding up his helmet—he has scored his century, he is savouring the applause; he is the master of the pitch. After one such innings he asks Andrew Flintoff—“Not bad, am I?"—as he gloats over his innings in the clubhouse later.

The English don’t like that because their ideal is humble effortless talent or humble determined grit. Pietersen was neither Gower nor Collingwood. He couldn’t fit in.

That matters, according to Ed Smith, one of the few cricketers who can write well. To understand the mind of a cricketer, he says, you have to recognize that at heart he is a schoolboy. Adult cricket is a continuation of school cricket. Once a teenager starts playing, there is no let up before he becomes an international. The school-like mentality remains with indecipherable codes. The cricketers remain Peter Pans, the boy wonders who don’t grow up, but who know what it takes to be part of that team.

The surprise about Pietersen is not that his career ended when he was still riding high, but that it took so long for the establishment to declare the innings closed. Pietersen may feel it is unfair; he is 91 not out. But this is life, and there is no decision review system: the umpire’s decision is final.

Salil Tripathi is a writer based in London.

Your comments are welcome at salil@livemint.com. To read Salil Tripathi’s previous columns, go to www.livemint.com/saliltripathi

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Published: 23 Oct 2014, 12:02 AM IST
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