Former LeftLion sports editor, Scott Oliver, has won one of cricket’s most prestigious literary prizes, the Wisden Book of the Year, for his debut book Sticky Dogs & Stardust. The book is a collection of essays detailing the exploits of some of the sport’s bona fide legends – among them the former Notts players Garfield Sobers, Kevin Pietersen, Andre Russell and Imran Tahir - when they turned out in league cricket alongside enthusiastic amateurs who they were expected to dominate. Oliver himself also played at Wollaton CC for a time. To celebrate Scott's success we are delighted to present this extract from the book – covering Pietersen’s troubled stint at Cannock – along with an exclusive discount code.
Kevin Pietersen at Cannock CC
(An extract from Sticky Dogs & Stardust by Scott Oliver)
Prior to finalising terms with Cannock CC, Pietersen had spoken to England captain Nasser Hussain about his desire to play some cricket in the UK. “He thought I meant club cricket,” Pietersen wrote in his 2007 autobiography, Crossing the Boundary, “and gave me the number of his brother Mel, who played for Fives & Heronians in the Essex League. But I had bigger aspirations than that. I was thinking of county cricket, perhaps at that stage as a non-overseas player because of my British passport.”
This boundless ambition would of course propel Pietersen to the sport’s loftiest heights. But for now, with the England captain unable to parachute someone with 253 first-class runs at 23 and 23 first-class wickets at 33 straight into the county game, Cannock it had to be. “I was immediately impressed with the facilities at the club,” he wrote, before unfurling the caveats, “but when they took me to my residence I found I was staying in a single room above a squash court. For me, a person who had always led an outdoor life, it was quite a shock. Totally not what I had expected. But I had to make do with that and I can honestly say I never had any real periods of self-doubt or ever questioned what I was doing there or whether I would be better off at home.”
The recollection of Cannock’s captain Laurie Potter, the former Kent and Leicestershire all-rounder, is that his new South African recruit was initially in the old dressing rooms at the far end of the pitch, swiftly upgraded to the main clubhouse after he relayed Pietersen’s complaints to the chairman, Jamie Fleet. “The apartment was not directly above a squash court but at the other side of the building,” says Fleet. “He might have heard people playing squash at 9pm but certainly not at 6am.”
A week later, Potter made 73 and Singh 67 as Cannock posted 243/9 against Old Hill, Pietersen chipping in with a sprightly 29 before being bowled by Jonathan Wright’s off-spin, with whom he had earlier had a ding-dong.
“He nicked one down to third man and it was going for a three,” Wright recalls. “He shoulder-barged me as he ran the first and I got a bit over-the-top angry about that. He definitely instigated it. But I stayed at Cannock till about 2am with [skipper] David Banks and KP. He didn’t have a bar shift that night. He was a complete arsehole on the pitch, but good company off it.”
His captain at Natal and predecessor as Cannock pro, Doug Watson, had stayed uncomplainingly in a caravan a few years earlier, yet Pietersen “had to make do” with digs that, for teammate Guy Bulpitt, were way beyond what could reasonably be expected for a relatively cheap and inexperienced overseas player. “The flat was nice. Two bedrooms, living room, bathroom, kitchen. It had a cleaner going in. You could walk into the clubhouse and get food. There probably isn’t a better gig in club cricket than that. What he said about that is madness.”
For the first month and a half, the high-maintenance pro spent a fair bit of time in his low-maintenance flat, as four of the opening seven Birmingham League league fixtures were abandoned, three without a ball being bowled.
In among the showers, Pietersen, who still considered himself primarily an off-spinner at this stage, was not only not bowling as much as he would have liked, there were also only glimpses of his emergent batting pyrotechnics, mainly due to the productivity of two guns above him in the order, Potter and Warwickshire’s Anurag Singh, although Pietersen did have the pleasure of dismissing Coventry & North Warwickshire’s 18-year-old starlet, Ian Bell, bowled for 7.
With Potter having plenty of strong bowling options, Pietersen was only given five of the 53 overs as Old Hill hung on at 149/8. Cannock’s new-ball attack comprised 6’5” former Worcestershire quick Paul Thomas and the 6’8” left-arm swing bowler Geoff Crook, who debuted for Staffordshire later that year. Back-up medium-pace was provided by policeman Paul Greenfield. Potter and Bulpitt were the frontline spinners.
“He came as an off-spinner to a club with two established spinners in the team, two league guns,” says Bulpitt, by then Staffordshire’s first-choice spinner. “He always wanted to bowl. If he’d been the second spinner somewhere he’d have bowled more overs. He was at the wrong club. Laurie would often bowl Kev before himself, which wasn’t ideal for the team.”
Given that Potter, Crook and Greenfield would finish the season occupying the top three spots in the league averages, with Bulpitt sixth, it wasn’t entirely unreasonable that Pietersen should find his bowling allotment so skimpy. “Kev believed the world should be bent to the needs of Kev,” says Potter. “He was supremely confident, outwardly at least, and maybe a bit delusional in some areas – his bowling, specifically – but he knew where he wanted to get to.”
By June 10 and the visit of bottom of the table Smethwick, he had sent down just 21.3 league overs, a number he failed to increase as the visitors were winkled out for 145. He was simmering.
These frustrations nevertheless had the inadvertent by-product of nudging him into the KP Zone. By the time he had reached a 56-ball half-century, Cannock required 19 to win off as many overs, at which point the visiting skipper, Stephen McDonald, decided to give his own under-used off-breaks an airing. “They were cruising to victory,” recalls Smethwick wicket-keeper Adam Binks. “Pietersen watched Steve bowl a warm-up delivery to mid-off then turned round to me and said, ‘The game finishes this over’. He then hit four sixes off the next five balls and just walked straight off.” Talk talked, walk walked.
“He won the game then walked off in the wrong direction,” says Bulpitt. “He was still stewing about not having bowled. He took his frustration out in his batting, so you could argue Potts’ decision not to bowl him made him into the cricketer he became!”
If you would like to purchase Scott Oliver's book at discounted rate then visit The Nightwatchman website and use the code LEFTLION10 at checkout for a 10% discount.
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