Boeta Dippenaar, who was captain of South Africa A on Friday night, said: "You must go with where you think there are the best opportunities and he obviously felt they weren't that great round here. You can't fault him, but there's no doubt he will probably be reminded on Sunday."Dippenaar admired Pietersen's cricket skills too after see him strike three booming sixes. "He's got a ruthless streak similar to Hansie Cronje, who batted that way when the game was in the balance and then would suddenly decide to end it quickly."Perhaps it was an unfortunate parallel since Cronje, though disgraced, is still considered a hero in these parts. "They gave me that traitor shit and all that nonsense, but it's water off a duck's back. I was South African for four years in England and copped it and now I'm copping it for being English in South Africa."The opposition that played last night just gave me stares but I wasn't really fussed since a lot of the blokes can hardly speak proper English."The increasingly audacious manner in which he made 97 suggested that there was not a trace of water left on his back at all It was unfettered big hitting in the Botham/Flintoff mould. "I think there's a strong probability of having it done on the day we leave but not before then because I believe it forms a scab," said Pietersen yesterday."The three lions with my cap number 185 underneath That's not a Christmas present, that's for life.
If anybody comes up to me and tells me I'm not English..."Perhaps he will be telling his critics that the three lions rampant were the heraldic symbol of Richard the Lionheart and used to be underscored on English cricket shirts by the crown, a dispensation given to the MCC by Edward VII in 1909.Pietersen had his refresher course of South African crowds while playing for England on Friday night in Kimberley and if they were inviting him out afterwards it was not for a quiet drink. Whether construed as horribly tacky or touchingly patriotic, it would be as well if he avoids visiting the engraver before entering the Wanderers tomorrow in front of an infamously partisan and vociferous crowd. Spectators at the Johannesburg arena consider it their bounden duty to terrify the opposition - usually with words to wither the staunchest individual but sometimes with more physical forms of abuse - and the sight of a batsman who was born and raised in Durban striding out to represent the English is already designed to provoke them into previously unheard torrents of invective.Pietersen appears to have borrowed his particularly distinctive version of an oath of allegiance from Darren Gough, the England fast bowler, who has a similar inscription. Kevin Pietersen asserted his affinity with England yesterday by announcing his intention to have a tattoo of the three lions motif etched on his left arm. Darren Gough will lead the attack, but for how long? James Anderson is in awful form.
Matthew Hoggard is only suddenly seen as a one-day player again. The management are hardly spoiled for choice.South Africa are suffering from the familiar struggles of not knowing their best team and being stupidly torn apart by trying to balance the side in terms of skin colour when that should be the easy part. If England can make enough runs - 300 at the ground may be needed on recent evidence - they can follow their first Test win at the Wanderers in 49 years with their first limited overs win of all.. If not, there is another strategy they should consider.This involves Vaughan opening, where style and application suggest he should be in both forms of the game, with Strauss, Bell, Pietersen and Paul Collingwood following. As the stand-in captain Trescothick observed the other night after victory over South Africa A, when Freddie Flintoff returns it should indeed be fun.England's seam bowling department is a significant worry. Consequently, she has been reluctant to commit herself to this year's World Championships in Helsinki, and remains undecided about the European Indoor Championships which start on 4 March in Madrid. She maintains she will make up her mind after the Birmingham Grand Prix on 18 February, where she will run the 1,000m.If Holmes is being circumspect about the forthcoming season, the same cannot be said of another British Olympic champion running in Glasgow today, Jason Gardener.The 29-year-old sprint relay gold medallist, who earned his first global title at last year's World Indoor Championships, has made Maurice Greene's world 60m record his immediate target."The only thing I have not done indoors is break the world record," he said.
