KP – Caught Between Cricket’s Sanctity versus Personal Safety?

One of the players who would be the star attraction in the second season of the IPL is also expressing huge doubts about his presence. And like it has been harped, when players of such caliber speak, it stands out. Is Pietersen battling issues of ensuring his personal safety above everything else while also worried that his comments could cause a collapse of cricket as we know it in the Indian sub continent.

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Kevin Pietersen is perhaps wary of doing it a second time so soon within six months. While Pakistan’s situation is starkly different from India, to the foreign, undiscerning eye, the two countries appear too close for comfort, though their respective political turmoil beat to a different tune.

Pietersen who was bought for a colossal USD1.55 million by the Royal Challengers Bangalore was in touch with the franchisee owner Vijay Mallya very early after the attacks of the terrorists on the Sri Lankan team exactly a week ago in Lahore, has expressed his reservations about coming to India for the IPL. “I will be consulting as many people as I can but if I don't think it is right, then I will not be going. After this final Test against the West Indies, I will be speaking to Bangalore, to the ECB, to my agent and to security advisors. Then I will be a lot clearer in my thoughts than I am now. Since the terror attacks in Mumbai we are all now more mindful of our own security arrangements” he stated with obviousness.

While he sympathized for the Pakistan cricketers as well as the people of Pakistan, he echoed what many before him have, “I don't think anyone would want to travel to Pakistan at the moment. I think, at the moment, it is unlikely people will be comfortable travelling there.”

Kevin Pietersen was incidentally the captain of the England team when the terror attacks happened in Mumbai. The England left India only to return to play the Tests, and his voice was perhaps one of the loudest in the affirmative. But it appears Pietersen is not willing to make a habit of it.

But that does not mean that the former England captain is not concerned over what a pullout like his followed by other cricketers can do for sport in the sub continent, “if everybody pulls out of the IPL then it would be a disaster, a catastrophe and world cricket would really be on a down. India is the force behind most of world cricket but there are things we have to go through before we go.”

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