Cricket: Pieterson a reflection of his time - neo-liberal and selfish to the core

Lack of loyalty has been Kevin Pietersen's hallmark. Photo / AP

The early history of test cricket runs parallel with the fall of empires and the rise of the modern nation state.

Test matches started in the 19th century, the great age of nationalism. Sir Don Bradman, the greatest cricketer who ever lived, was the symbol of Australian self-assertion against the mother country.

Sir Frank Worrell, the first permanent black captain of the West Indies, was a vital figure in the liberation movement that spread through the Caribbean in the post-war era.

According to the historian Ramachundra Guha, "one can read the coming into being of the nation of Pakistan" through study of the life of the nation's first test captain, Abdul Hafeez Kardar.

All these great men saw cricket partly as a sport, but more importantly as a way of serving their country. Cricket as a means of making money did not come into it.

At the heart of the game was a highly developed concept of fair play. Players were expected not to cheat - for instance, to "walk" if they were out. The authority of the umpire was respected. It was axiomatic that the individual should subordinate himself and his talents to the team.

It was recognised extraordinary talents came by the grace of God and were not a mark of individual virtue.

But religion is no longer the force it was. In economic terms, cricket at the top level has ceased to be a form of national service and should be viewed as another branch of the global entertainment business.

Welcome to the world inhabited by Kevin Pietersen, England's best and most exciting batsman, who was told by selectors on Wednesday he will never again play for England. This painful decision has been widely reported in the context of a classic struggle between one rampant egotist and the wider interests of the team but it is worth placing it in a much broader context.

Worrell, A.H. Kardar, Bradman and England's Colin Cowdrey were manifestations of the mid-20th-century nation state, and the social and moral obligations that went with it.

Pietersen is a manifestation of the unqualified victory of neo-liberal market economics over the past three decades.

Neo-liberals have little time for social institutions, are contemptuous of national borders and advocate the free movements of capital and people. Above all, they place the individual first.

Pietersen was born and bred in South Africa and made his first-class debut for a South African team. He emerged as a cricketer when apartheid had gone and the country was building a multi-racial national team.

Pietersen wanted no part in this new world. He got out as soon as he could, claiming the positive discrimination necessary to help black cricketers stood in his way. Lack of loyalty has been his hallmark in English cricket. In the England team he seems to have been the repeated cause of division and bitterness.

Eighteen months ago, Pietersen shared a century partnership with debutant James Taylor at Leeds. At the end of the session Pietersen walked off the field with the South African players, leaving Taylor on his own. It emerged Pietersen was sending text messages to his South African opponents in which he is said to have mocked the England captain, Andrew Strauss, who quit after that episode - a black day for English cricket.

Pietersen has got on no better with Strauss's successor, Alastair Cook. During England's horror tour of Australia, Pietersen repeatedly got out to reckless shots. The worst moment came in the third test at Perth, when the circumstances demanded a long, patient innings. Pietersen was caught brainlessly trying to hit the off-spinner Nathan Lyon for six over mid-on, a stroke that condemned England to lose the match and the series.

Pietersen has many defenders, including Piers Morgan, a former editor of the News of the World. Morgan has drawn attention to Pietersen's charisma at the crease and his many great match-winning innings. But Pietersen's defenders go too far by comparing him favourably with those they damn as the "yes men" in the England dressing room. There is nothing disreputable about pulling together in a common cause, or contemptible about showing public spirit, or degraded about obeying orders.

Open borders and free movement of capital have brought great prosperity and a certain vitality to Britain over the past quarter century.

But the wealth brought by international capital can be intensely damaging: some British citizens feel they are living in communities that no longer belong to them in a political system that no longer listens to them.

This is why, at the heart of British politics today, there is a debate about national identity. What does it mean to be British? Who, indeed, do we want playing for our national sports teams? As one who has followed and loved the England cricket team for nearly 50 years, one judgment is easy. The selectors made the right decision in dumping Pietersen for repeated selfishness and disloyalty.

But there is one powerful point in the man's favour. He is part of an international phenomenon that has made a great many worthless people, above all investment bankers, huge amounts of money. At least he has proved by his superb performances on the field that he is worth it.