The real wonder of Kevin Pietersen's England career is not that he has endured for so long but that he was picked in the first place. Such is the deep-seated suspicion of the 'maverick' in English sport.
It is often enough simply to possess an outlandish talent to be considered suspect. English sport is set up for honest yeomen, while outlandish talent is often treated like witchcraft.
Pietersen, who has played 104 Tests, is proof that a so-called maverick can endure, but he has never stopped being a conundrum.
Pietersen's inclusion in the England squad for the 2005 Ashes series represented an uncharacteristic piece of selectorial risk-taking, especially given that the dependable Graham Thorpe was simultaneously jettisoned.
For many, Pietersen was too South African. Others thought him too capricious. And there was the question of his hair. Despite making 13,797 international runs and being England's highest run-scorer in the depressing 5-0 Ashes whitewash, he remains a deeply divisive figure.
Even David Gower has accused Pietersen of putting his ego before the team. Gower's opinion is particularly noteworthy, not least because the exquisite left-hander once buzzed an Ashes warm-up game in Queensland in a Tiger Moth biplane.
Such Corinthian behaviour suggested Gower's heart wasn't in playing cricket for England, regardless of his thousands of Test runs. Not long after the Tiger Moth incident, Gower's career was gunned down by Graham Gooch, his significantly more prosaic skipper.
Others in the pantheon of English sporting mavericks include Glenn Hoddle, described by Arsene Wenger, who managed the former Tottenham and England playmaker at Monaco, as "the most skilful player I ever worked with", yet dismissed by others as "a luxury"; and former Bath fly-half Stuart Barnes, a suspicious free-thinker in the dogmatic world of English rugby. More of both later.
This distrust of the unorthodox has its roots in the Victorian era, the age of the sporting amateur. As Sir John Gielgud's Cambridge college master made clear to Harold Abrahams in Chariots of Fire, sport was meant to be about the "unassailable spirit of loyalty, comradeship and mutual responsibility". Non-conformists, in the words of Gielgud's character, messed with "esprit de corps".
But it was in the 1970s that the stereotype of the sporting maverick morphed into its modern form, as a direct result of English football's greatest triumph.
It is often enough simply to possess an outlandish talent to be considered suspect. English sport is set up for honest yeomen, while outlandish talent is often treated like witchcraft.
Pietersen, who has played 104 Tests, is proof that a so-called maverick can endure, but he has never stopped being a conundrum.
Pietersen's inclusion in the England squad for the 2005 Ashes series represented an uncharacteristic piece of selectorial risk-taking, especially given that the dependable Graham Thorpe was simultaneously jettisoned.
For many, Pietersen was too South African. Others thought him too capricious. And there was the question of his hair. Despite making 13,797 international runs and being England's highest run-scorer in the depressing 5-0 Ashes whitewash, he remains a deeply divisive figure.
Even David Gower has accused Pietersen of putting his ego before the team. Gower's opinion is particularly noteworthy, not least because the exquisite left-hander once buzzed an Ashes warm-up game in Queensland in a Tiger Moth biplane.
Such Corinthian behaviour suggested Gower's heart wasn't in playing cricket for England, regardless of his thousands of Test runs. Not long after the Tiger Moth incident, Gower's career was gunned down by Graham Gooch, his significantly more prosaic skipper.
Others in the pantheon of English sporting mavericks include Glenn Hoddle, described by Arsene Wenger, who managed the former Tottenham and England playmaker at Monaco, as "the most skilful player I ever worked with", yet dismissed by others as "a luxury"; and former Bath fly-half Stuart Barnes, a suspicious free-thinker in the dogmatic world of English rugby. More of both later.
This distrust of the unorthodox has its roots in the Victorian era, the age of the sporting amateur. As Sir John Gielgud's Cambridge college master made clear to Harold Abrahams in Chariots of Fire, sport was meant to be about the "unassailable spirit of loyalty, comradeship and mutual responsibility". Non-conformists, in the words of Gielgud's character, messed with "esprit de corps".
But it was in the 1970s that the stereotype of the sporting maverick morphed into its modern form, as a direct result of English football's greatest triumph.
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