LONDON, (Reuters) – Kevin Pietersen must go back in time and start constructing his innings as he did at the start of his international career in order to ignite England’s World Cup challenge, according to former team mate Geraint Jones.
“In the World Cup you need your big guns to fire,” Kent wicketkeeper-batsman Jones told Reuters in an interview. “Kevin did that for the Twenty20 World Cup triumph last year and will no doubt look to do the same this time.
“I was in the side when he came into the one-day team in South Africa in 2005 and he got three hundreds in the series. It was exciting to watch him play there, the way he went about it.
“He built his innings and then used his power. I think that’s potentially an area he needs to get back to,” added Jones, a member of the Ashes-winning team six years ago.
England launch their World Cup campaign against Netherlands in Nagpur on Feb. 22 and Jones said the management team would be massaging Pietersen’s ego to get his batting back on track after a poor series in the recent 6-1 one-day defeat in Australia.
“He seems now to want to be ultra attacking from ball one and you just can’t do that,” said the 34-year-old. “You have to assess match conditions and pitch conditions and England need Kevin to bat long innings.
“If he does that and he’s there at the back end of an innings, whether we bat first or second, we are going to win games.
“I’m sure (coach) Andy Flower and (captain) Andrew Strauss will be talking to Kevin and saying, ‘Listen, you are our main player and we want you to bat a long time because if you do there is no doubt you’ll score big hundreds’,” Jones added.
The `keeper, who appeared in 34 tests and 49 one-dayers for England between 2004-06, said it was especially important for Pietersen to fire on the sub-continent after Eoin Morgan was ruled out of the World Cup because of a broken finger.
“Morgan’s injury is a massive blow,” said Jones. “He changes matches. If you bat first he can belt 100 in 50 balls … and when you are chasing targets he has shown how calm he is under pressure.
