Pieterson will put family first
Family will come first for Kevin Pietersen if he has to choose between playing in the ICC World T20 and attending the birth of his first child.
Pietersen and his wife Jessica Taylor are due to become parents early next May, while the World Twenty20 runs from April 30 for 17 days.
Precedents have already been set by Andrew Flintoff and Matt Prior when it comes to prioritising their children ahead of cricket, and Pietersen stresses he will be no different.
"I will be at the birth of my child, regardless of anything in this world," he said.
Pietersen's final decision on that score can wait several months, of course.
But before then he faces the thorny problem of how to regain his best form just a week before the start of England's Test series in South Africa.
"I realise it's not going to be a case of me turning up and starting again from where I left off," said Pietersen, who is still searching for a first major innings in five attempts since his return from four months out after Achilles surgery.
He is nonetheless confident he is doing everything in his power to help himself.
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"It will happen eventually," he said. "I've hit hundreds and hundreds of balls. I feel in really good nick but nets are not exactly the same as the middle."
Two two-day tour matches against South African Airways XIs in East London should give Pietersen a chance to put a decent score in the book, weather permitting, before the first Test at Centurion.
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"If it doesn't happen this week, it doesn't happen and you've just got to draw on your experiences from the past," he added.
The hardest task so far has been getting used to facing a pacy South African attack - after no cricket for so long.
"It is the pace of the game," Pietersen admitted. "I came in from not playing to facing Morne Morkel at 150 (kmh), Dale Steyn at 150, and I hadn't faced too many bowlers at 150 in the nets.
"The last person I probably faced at 150 was (Peter) Siddle in the Ashes.
"To go from there, having four months off, being on a drip for two days in hospital and lying on my couch for two months, coming under fire from a really, really fast South African attack is quite difficult.
"I'm trying my hardest to get back as quick as I can."
Pietersen has also been the predictable target of the boos and whistles of partisan home crowds, still apparently unhappy with his decision at the start of the century to leave his native country and seek a route into Test cricket elsewhere.
It is not, however, a situation which unduly bothers him and he is still encouraged by his ability to channel similar treatment in his favour when he made an astonishingly productive entrance for England here in a one-day international series almost five years ago.
"I've had it since the start of my career," he said. "The baptism of fire that I came under at The Wanderers five years ago, nothing will ever be as bad as that.
"I just draw confidence from the way I played in that series."
He is amused to see little has changed in the intervening years.
"A few people booing me at St George's [Port Elizabeth] or abusing me on the boundary, I'm sure they've got better things to do with their lives," he said.
"I don't take it personally, just as someone who has had an okay career so far and the crowd want to try to rile you so that you don't stand too long at the crease.
"Pantomime villain, traitor - every word or adjective that gets thrown - all I'm doing is concentrating on the ball."
He is happy to report too that there has been no aggravation away from the match venues.
"I haven't had one confrontation with anybody in South Africa since I've been here," he added.
"The South African public have been fantastic with me off the field.
"Even in bars, if people have been intoxicated, I've never ever had a problem."
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