Pietersen Dismisses Criticism

Kevin Pietersen has dismissed criticism of his left-handed sixes as "ridiculous" after helping England romp to a 114-run victory over New Zealand in the NatWest Series opener.

The Hampshire batsman won the man of the match award at Chester-le-Street for hitting a brilliant, unbeaten 110 off 112 balls to help England record a challenging total of 307 for five before the tourists were dismissed for a lowly 193 in reply.

It was a breathtaking display from Pietersen, but most of the attention during his innings was centred on two left-handed shots for six off Scott Styris where he reversed his grip and stance.

The whole ground was stunned at the power he produced with each shot, which he had previously played at Edgbaston against Muttiah Muralitharan two years ago.

But those shots prompted criticism from some commentators, who claimed they were unfair on bowlers who have to declare which hand they are going to bowl with.

It brought an indignant response from Pietersen, who said: "It's ridiculous, it's absolutely stupid.

"Reverse sweeps have been part of the game since however long and I'm just fortunate enough that I can hit it a bit further. I don't understand that because everyone wants new ideas and inventions so this is a new shot.

"Nobody has seen that before and that's a new shot played today and people should be saying it's the new way to go, not criticising everything that happens on a daily basis.

"There's new things happening to cricket at the moment and people are criticising all the time. There should just be positives about all the stuff that's happening."

Pietersen revealed the two stunning shots were the results of hours of perfecting them in the nets, adding: "It's something I practise, it's something I visualise, I go through routines in the nets.

"I spend some time playing it in the nets and it's just an option. Against Muralitharan it was a boundary option and the boundary on the legside was miles away here so I thought the other boundary was the way forward.

"There was only one man out there and there are generally three out on the legside and I just thought that if I got it, I got it and if I don't, I don't. We were in a position where we were trying to push the accelerator and it worked for me today."

Captain Paul Collingwood, whose 64 was his first half-century in any cricket this season and was at the other end when Pietersen hit the two shots, joked: "To be honest I covered my eyes as soon as he turned his body around - I feel as if I've been batting left-handed for the last month as it is!

"He did actually come up the wicket and tell me he'd been thinking about doing it in bed last night so the visualisation was there anyway!"

New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori was also in awe at Pietersen's talent, but claimed bowlers should be allowed to bowl the ball either side of the wicket and not be called for a wide just to level up the playing field.

At present any delivery which goes down the legside in one-day cricket is called for a wide, but there is a potential conflict about identifying them if batsmen are to reverse their stance.

"That's part of cricket and it's amazing to see and I think it's really good for the game that batsmen have the skill to do that," said Vettori.

"The only thing I would say about it is that if you're going to bat left-handed then I think to even it up for the bowlers you should have both sides of the wide line.

"That would bring your skill into play and the wicketkeeper's skill into play, if a batsman wants to change then it should be fair for both ball and batsmen.

"Craig McMillan hit me for a massive reverse-sweep six so that's the biggest I've seen but these were cricket slogs, they were very impressive shots - that's why people come and watch a guy like Kevin Pietersen play because he can produce that type of performance."

The two sides now travel to Birmingham for the second game in the five-match series on Wednesday with Collingwood delighted at his side's performance having previously won the only Twenty20 International by nine wickets on Friday.

"It was another great performance," he added.

"To play like we did in the Twenty20 on Friday and go out and do the same breeds confidence.

"They're two great wins but we've only gone 1-0 up so we're not going to get too carried away. There were some great individual performances today but overall it was a great team performance."