"Kevin is at the stage of his career when he has to ask if he still has the inner drive to carry on," his ex-skipper Michael Vaughan wrote in his column in the UK’s Telegraph newspaper.
"He is too good to keep getting out the way he has in this series.
“We have not seen the KP I know or like to watch bat.
"I see him trying to fight but the dismissals so far have been soft for a senior player batting in an inexperienced line-up and the England management will know it has not been good enough."
Even allowing for the South African-born batsman’s capacity to polarise and perplex, his contribution in England’s inadequate first innings in the third Commonwealth Bank Test in Perth was difficult to fathom.
Having come to the crease with his team battling to stay in the game and the series at 2-90 in distant pursuit of Australia’s first-up total of 385, Pietersen showed the sort of patience, concentration and grim intent that many have called for him to belatedly display.
The normally aggressive stroke player, who hates being dictated to by any bowler, faced 44 balls before scoring his first boundary, which immediately doubled his score.
He fought a protracted battle with Australia’s in-form pace bowler Mitchell Johnson, who peppered Pietersen with searing short-pitched deliveries to which the batsman repeatedly took evasive action and appeared content to bide his time in his team’s interests.
He finally broke the shackles with two boundaries in a Johnson over, and in the process became just the fifth England player to pass 8,000 Test runs.
Only current England batting coach Graham Gooch (8900), Alec Stewart (8463), David Gower (8231) and Geoffrey Boycott (8114) have compiled more.
But the moment Johnson was removed from the attack and replaced by Peter Siddle, Pietersen’s approach changed.
Siddle’s proven ability to capture Pietersen’s wicket – he had claimed him nine times in Tests prior to yesterday – seemed to rile England’s most experienced and prolific incumbent batsman to the point of impetuosity.
Ignoring, or more likely incensed by, the fact that Siddle maintained such a good strike rate against him, Pietersen swung hard at the first ball he received and then attempted to muscle the fifth over mid-on, only to have Johnson pull down an athletic overhead catch.
It was the fourth time in five innings that Pietersen had fallen to a lofted stroke on the leg side, and the third time he had lost his wicket having batted for around an hour-and-a-half.
It led another former England captain, Nasser Hussain, to criticise Pietersen’s cavalier approach and his unwillingness to show responsibility and leadership when his team was clearly in trouble.
“Pietersen infuriates,†Hussain told Sky Sports. “He’ll please us and upset us and disappoint us in equal measure to be honest, that’s why he polarises opinion so much.
“That was a classic case (yesterday) – he went from first gear to fifth gear. It just wasn’t good enough from Pietersen in my opinion.
“He has to take more responsibility, and he’s got to start respecting Peter Siddle.
“He’s played some of the great bowlers in world cricket and he’s got out to Peter Siddle 10 times so it is an issue for Pietersen, it is an issue for England and I could see his dismissal coming from the way Pietersen reacted from the moment Johnson was taken off.â€
Former England coach David Lloyd was equally harsh in his critique of Pietersen, noting that the weapon that Siddle seems to employ against such an imperious batting talent is nothing more sinister than disciplined line, length and patience.
“England really needed him (yesterday), they needed him to play a responsible innings,†Lloyd said. “He was in his bunker and very, very careful, ultra defensive and then suddenly ‘click’.
“He (Siddle) has got him out in bizarre ways, so the frustration would be with the fans and definitely with his (Pietersen’s) team and his manager and his coach and his captain because England needed him.â€
For his part, Pietersen seemed oblivious to the controversy swirling around him having tweeted to his more than 1.4 million Twitter followers on Saturday evening: “Thank you for the v kind msgs on passing #8000runs.
