This name probably doesn't mean a lot to most of you. However to cricket fans around the world this name is known as one of the best players in the last 20 years.
Pietersen came to England from South Africa to play cricket. He played first-class cricket in South Africa but he saw a lack of opportunities for himself in the country because of the racial quota system. From memory, I think that for cricket in particular, each team has to have at least 5 players of colour in the starting 11. (Please correct me if I am wrong.)
Pietersen made a name for himself in the England cricket team. Scoring runs all over the world against all the different international teams and becoming one of the best players in the world.
Unfortunately this wasn't to last and he found himself increasingly offside with the England Cricket Board as well as his teams mates in the England team.
Because of Pietersen's apparent abrasive personality he became more and more isolated within the England dressing room, so much so that there were accusations of bullying and the like.
I'm not an expert in English culture but from what I can tell and what I have heard, the idea of speaking your mind and calling a spade a spade is not particularly English and I'm sure Kevin Pietersen through no fault of his own has probably rubbed a few people up the wrong way through just doing what he was brought up to do.
We were told that there were cliques in the English dressing room and this was probably because of culture, upbringing and dare I say it, personality.
Kevin Pietersen comes across as a very confident and outspoken character. I don't believe this to be true. I believe that it is part of his cricket playing persona when in fact his real personality is a lot quieter than what we see on television.
When people ask me how is this possible, I just say that it is very easy. It is easy to play a character to a crowd and because you do this people think that you are like this 100% of the time but this just is not true. In front of the cameras you can come across as confident and at times arrogant but in reality that is not the case and even people that you are close to can get the absolute wrong idea.
What I am trying to say is that even if the people that are around you may not do the same things that you do and they might (in your mind anyway) have some odd behaviour, that doesn't give you a licence to bully or mock them. Try to understand them. Try to figure where they are coming from. Be a caring person. They might not be as "cool" as you but who cares. You might learn something from them and that is a good thing, isn't it?
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