Pietersen to fight fire with fire

12 April 2012

Kevin Pietersen has warned Australia to be wary of a bouncer war in this winter's Ashes.

Australia captain Ricky Ponting reckons England's big guns Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff may be susceptible to the short stuff. England hit 36 sixes during their 2-1 Ashes win in 2005, however Ponting believes those kind of strokes will be more risky on Australia's bigger grounds.

"Our pace bowlers are pretty quick and I am not sure they will be producing bouncy wickets because if we have Steve Harmison, Andrew Flintoff and Sajid Mahmood running in at 90 miles per hour there is no batsman in the world that would like it," Pietersen said. "There is no-one who could say they love facing bumpers all day at 90 miles an hour."

Australia's bowlers were encouraged by what they witnessed in the six-wicket victory on Saturday. Mitchell Johnson undid Pietersen with the fast bowler's one-two of bouncer followed by full delivery while Flintoff was caught in the deep from a cross-bat stroke off Shane Watson.

Asked if he thought banging the ball into the pitch would be profitable in the Ashes, left-armer Johnson said: "Against Pietersen maybe, yeah. From the footage that I've seen, he likes to get forward early.

"Maybe Flintoff as well. Shane got him out trying to play the pull shot and got him on the forearm as well, trying to get forward. Yeah, maybe that's a pretty good option with those guys."

Such has been Pietersen's impact in his two years at the top level that his current run in one-day internationals looks like a crisis. Although he played two innings to guide England to small targets against Pakistan last month, he has not scored a half-century in any of his last eight innings.

Nevertheless, the 26-year-old, who Ponting recently predicted will be the sport's next superstar, insists he is in good touch.

"I am hitting the ball as well as I have ever done in the nets," he said. "I don't feel out of form, it is just that you can't score runs all day every day.

"I look at the positives and never the negatives: I could get out for one but you are only one innings away from a big hundred or a match-winning performance."

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