As the saying goes, one swallow does not make a summer. A perfectly decent innings, but given that his form cascaded from the 2nd test against the WI onwards in both forms of the game i don't think that one inning changes much especially when you consider the mediocrity that followed thereafter.
Well, personally I don't think 9, 68, 0, 28, 37, 134 (his scores in the Third and Fourth WI and First India Tests) are too bad really. And while it didn't really matter a great deal whether England lost or drew the Third Test against India, he did play the major part in saving it, though I didn't watch a single ball of that innings so I don't really know how good it was.
Pietersen has simply found ways - no consistency in them - to get out this winter. He certainly hasn't played dreadfully, but he hasn't been up to the levels we expect from him. Maybe this is just a blip. If he were to smash 150 in the second-innings of this Test I'm sure much would be forgiven.
I think Pietersen's issue really is that now that he is capable of playing in 2 different gears (which is a remarkable feat), he finds himself unsure as to which gear to push in many situations, which has affected both his ODI and test form.
Yes, agree with that very much. Pietersen's best innings have almost all come when he's started in low gear and moved up them at just the right time. The frustrating thing recently is the fact he's found ways to get out often around the time you'd expect him to start doing so, which has given some people the impression he's not playing aggressively enough.
I also find it a little hard to fathom why he has removed the slog sweep from his armory over the last couple of years. Whilst risky, I firmly believe that anyone who is capable of playing the shot well has the crucial ability to unsettle bowlers as well as hit the ball in unusual spaces on the ground. Watching Pietersen let bowlers like Vettori and Patel dictate proceedings to him as they did in Hamilton really makes him look like a shadow of the player that has dominated 2 of the greatest spinners in the history of the game.
Pretty much agree with that too. Memory isn't faultless enough to remember how often he used it, especially against Muralitharan (remember more cases of him skipping down the pitch, but those strokes are naturally more memorable so that doesn't neccessarily mean much), but he is certainly capable of playing the shot well. Vettori isn't always the easiest bowler to sweep due to his change of pace, but Patel can be dealt with that way.
