MUMBAI // When Kevin Pietersen leads England out for the first time in a Test match against the country of his birth at the Oval today, there is unlikely to be an outpouring of goodwill towards him back in South Africa.
Pietersen turned his back on his homeland in 2000, citing what he felt was a racist and unfair quota selection policy as his reason for leaving, and qualified for England instead.
The hate felt towards the Pietermaritzburg-born batsmen, who some perceived as a mercenary and a turncoat, may have subsided - but he is still regarded with ambivalence, at best, back in Africa.
"It won't be a big thing back home," claimed Shaun Pollock, the former Proteas captain-turned-commentator, who tried to talk Pietersen out of moving to England in 1999.
"We've more than accepted it and moved on from that state of mind. They'll understand he has gone."
Yet there are those in South Africa who are sympathetic to his cause. According to his former coach, Andrew Shedlock, Pietersen deserves all the success that has come his way since he packed his bags and left South Africa. "He made a choice - the correct one in my view," said Shedlock. "People often ask, 'If he had stayed in South Africa, would he have made it?'
"We will never know, but he has stuck to his choice and made it big. Who can deny what he has done?
"When you make a choice to play for another country, it is difficult. For him to succeed in England, over and above his ability he had to back himself.
"That is what Kevin is really good at. We can't deny where he has got to. He is unbelievable."
Shedlock was one of the few people to welcome Pietersen back, after he first rejected his homeland. He was a pariah and Shedlock recalls: "When Kevin used to come back from England, he wasn't too popular in South Africa at that stage.
"I was head coach of the Natal Academy, and Kevin would come and ask if I wouldn't mind working with him.
"He was always a confident young kid. He knew he was going to make it. He would come home prior to the English season, and I would work with him one-on-one, doing throw-downs.
"I would come down and spend 30 minutes in the nets with him throwing balls at him, getting him ready for the English summer. I've always known him as a confident kid.
"In our school system, you leave when you are 18. He left when he was 17, so he was pretty young. He had made the Natal Schools B side in the national league.
"But he said, no, he was tired of playing with these youngsters, and he wanted to go and play with the older boys.
"A lot of people said that was arrogance, but to be a top-class sportsman nowadays, you have to have some form of arrogance. Confidence plays a huge part.
"He has been exceptional for world cricket. Sport needs characters and he is one of those. He will go down as one of the best. Good luck to him."
Shedlock's influence is now being felt in youth cricket in the UAE. He was in the Emirates last month to conduct a coaching clinic with the Young Talents Cricket Academy (YTCA).
He is the latest in a long line of prominent coaches to have helped out at the country's most prolific cricketing finishing school. The list includes the ex-Pakistan coach Mushtaq Mohammed, India's bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad and the late Bob Woolmer. Shedlock, who is Darryl Cullinan's assistant with the Indian Cricket League side Kolkata Tigers, is planning to set up an exchange scheme between the YTCA and his own academy back home in Natal.
@Email:pradley@thenational.ae
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At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
Company: Instabug
Founded: 2013
Based: Egypt, Cairo
Sector: IT
Employees: 100
Stage: Series A
Investors: Flat6Labs, Accel, Y Combinator and angel investors
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
The National in Davos
We are bringing you the inside story from the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos, a gathering of hundreds of world leaders, top executives and billionaires.
Points about the fast fashion industry Celine Hajjar wants everyone to know
- Fast fashion is responsible for up to 10 per cent of global carbon emissions
- Fast fashion is responsible for 24 per cent of the world's insecticides
- Synthetic fibres that make up the average garment can take hundreds of years to biodegrade
- Fast fashion labour workers make 80 per cent less than the required salary to live
- 27 million fast fashion workers worldwide suffer from work-related illnesses and diseases
- Hundreds of thousands of fast fashion labourers work without rights or protection and 80 per cent of them are women
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Athletic Bilbao 0
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War
Director: Siddharth Anand
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How to register as a donor
1) Organ donors can register on the Hayat app, run by the Ministry of Health and Prevention
2) There are about 11,000 patients in the country in need of organ transplants
3) People must be over 21. Emiratis and residents can register.
4) The campaign uses the hashtag #donate_hope
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Country-size land deals
US interest in purchasing territory is not as outlandish as it sounds. Here's a look at some big land transactions between nations:
Louisiana Purchase
If Donald Trump is one who aims to broker "a deal of the century", then this was the "deal of the 19th Century". In 1803, the US nearly doubled in size when it bought 2,140,000 square kilometres from France for $15 million.
Florida Purchase Treaty
The US courted Spain for Florida for years. Spain eventually realised its burden in holding on to the territory and in 1819 effectively ceded it to America in a wider border treaty.
Alaska purchase
America's spending spree continued in 1867 when it acquired 1,518,800 km2 of Alaskan land from Russia for $7.2m. Critics panned the government for buying "useless land".
The Philippines
At the end of the Spanish-American War, a provision in the 1898 Treaty of Paris saw Spain surrender the Philippines for a payment of $20 million.
US Virgin Islands
It's not like a US president has never reached a deal with Denmark before. In 1917 the US purchased the Danish West Indies for $25m and renamed them the US Virgin Islands.
Gwadar
The most recent sovereign land purchase was in 1958 when Pakistan bought the southwestern port of Gwadar from Oman for 5.5bn Pakistan rupees.
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- Field engineer: Dh6,500 to Dh7,500
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- Field operator: Dh5,000 to Dh7,000
Ms Yang's top tips for parents new to the UAE
- Join parent networks
- Look beyond school fees
- Keep an open mind
