Pietersen's Hundred

I watched Kevin Pietersen's 15th Test Match century on Sky this morning. There aren't many players worth paying to watch play cricket for England, but KP is the genuine article. A sportsman with the talent to back up his arrogance and belief in his own ability. I can't think of many English sportsmen who can combine the two. Anyway, Pietersen's century threw up a raft of stats as ever, the most impressive being the sheer speed at which he's now scored 4000 test match runs. The quickest apparently in terms of days since his test debut, and joint 3rd on the list of English batsmen to reach 4000 run in fewest number of test. In Pietersen's case, that is just 45, matching Jack Hobbs. The two above Pietersen on the list are equally illustrious: Herbert Sutcliffe (43) and Len Hutton (44).

The other interesting fact handed out by the Sky commentary team was that Pietersen is the first England captain to score a test match hundred against India since Tony Greig in 1977. Before that, Tony Lewis did it in Kampur in 1973. Which in itself throws up another interesting fact - none of them were born in England. Pietersen is from Pietermaritzburg in the Natal region of South Africa; Greig is from the Eastern Cape and Lewis from the not-so-exotic Swansea, South Wales.