What was so special about 2008? Well if you live in the real world and are not obsessed by cricket like me then you might mumble something about the global financial crisis, or the election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America. Worthy subjects sure, but in the bubble of English cricket 2008 will always be the year of change that split the successful eras of Michael Vaughan and Andrew Strauss.
Back in 2008, English cricket belonged to Kevin Pietersen, a mercurial outsider, and Dean Wilson loved every minute of it.
Let’s call it the year of the KP. It was a midpoint four years after Kevin Pietersen’s England debut and six years before his international career came to a juddering halt and even though cricket is a team game, his career arc is a thing of perplexing beauty.
There have been other players during this period who have done incredible things and made huge contributions, but for the 10 years that Pietersen was an England player, no man had a greater influence or polarised opinion more than him and I found it utterly fascinating.
A terrorism-influenced tour to India later and it is all over, he is stripped of the captaincy while Peter Moores is sacked as coach and the huge schism that remains between Pietersen and the ECB to this day is created.
I think Pietersen actually had his happiest moment as an England player in 2008, as captain raising his bat for that hundred against South Africa at the Oval. It certainly looked that way to me. I know I had a great time watching it.
First published in 2016.
