Kevin Pietersen ‘near autistic’, says writer

The decision by Kevin Pietersen (pictured) to relinquish the captaincy of the England's cricket team comes as no surprise to Simon Barnes, the distinguished sports journalist and author. Writing in the Times, he observes it was inevitable given the 28-year-old's super-inflated ego and unchecked narcissism, and offers a critique of the player that could be mistaken for a psychiatric profile.

"Kevin Pietersen is like the actor who asked what he was supposed to do in the pauses. 'What pauses?' asked the director, who prided himself on the paciness of his productions. 'You know - the pauses when other people speak.'"

Barnes says that the South African-born player, who is married to the Liberty X singer Jessica Taylor, "has never been comfortable with that Other People thing. He has never quite got his mind around the fact that there are people who do their stuff in the world for reasons entirely unrelated to Kevin Pietersen. Small wonder that he didn't make it as captain of the England cricket team.

"Throughout his life, Pietersen has been disappointed by the world. His response, on every occasion, has been not to change himself but to change the world. When he comes across an uncomfortable truth, he gets rid of it, like Sir Alan Sugar firing an apprentice."

Concludes Barnes: "Pietersen's illiteracy when it comes to other people, his near-autistic understanding of things such as friendships and enmities and joys and worries, always isolated him as a player. This only increased when he was made captain."