Kevin Peter Pietersen, MBE is a South African-born English cricketer. He is a right-handed batsman and occasional off spin bowler who plays for Hampshire County Cricket Club, England, and is player of the Indian Premier League team Royal Challengers Bangalore. He was captain of the England Test and One Day International teams from 4 August 2008 to 7 January 2009. He resigned after just three tests and nine One Day Internationals.
He made his first-class debut for Natal in 1997 before moving to England after voicing his displeasure at the racial quota system in place in South Africa, despite good opportunities for playing at international level. His English mother gave Pietersen eligibility to play for England, and after serving a qualifying period of four years playing at county level, he was called up almost immediately into the national side. He made his international debut in the One Day International match against Zimbabwe in 2004, and his Test match debut in the 2005 Ashes series against Australia the following year.
Pietersen became the fastest batsman to reach both 1,000 and 2,000 runs in One Day International cricket, and has the highest average of any England player to have played more than 20 innings of one-day cricket. He has the second-highest run total from his first 25 Tests, behind only the Australian Donald Bradman, and was the fastest player, in terms of days, to reach 4,000 Test runs. He became only the third English batsman to top the ICC One Day International rankings, doing so in March 2007.
In February 2009, the Bangalore Royal Challengers bought Pietersen for 1,550,000 $ making him the highest paid IPL player along with Andrew Flintoff surpassing Mahendra Singh Dhoni's 1,500,000 $. On March 22, it was announced Pietersen will takeover as Bangalore Royal Challengers captain succeeding Rahul Dravid and when he leaves for his England commitments, Jacques Kallis will takeover for the rest of IPL-II.
Pietersen failed to live up to his expensive price tag in the second edition of the IPL as he struggled with the bat. And it was only after he left for England for a Test series against the West Indies, that Bangalore Royal Challengers started winning matches under the captaincy of Anil Kumble.
Pietersen brings in a flair and a match-winning ability to the England line-up that was hitherto missing. His innovations, with the well-documented switch hit, makes him doubly effective in a T20 setting.