Pietersen must go back to go forward – Jones

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.

Kevin Pietersen

“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.