Who needs a litany of Pietersen's complaints?

To read Kevin Pietersen's book KP: The Autobiography is to be filled with sympathy. I never thought I would feel that way. It had initially seemed that all the faults were on the one side, but now I am filled with wondrously compassionate feelings about the England and Wales Cricket Board and everyone connected with the England team.

That's the problem with (a) score-settling and (b) egomania. Both tend to alienate sympathy. And oh! the sensitivity of the fundamentally insensitive man. Pietersen could - and did - drive a mechanical flail through the England team without being aware that anyone was inconvenienced, but should he suffer the pricking of a pin he's awake all night weeping.

This is a borderline unreadable book. Can't blame the ghost, David Walsh: how could anyone make 315 pages of bleating into a convincing narrative? Apparently they're all bastards. Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me! 

But the strange event is not the falling-out that the book celebrates. The miracle was that it lasted for nine years. Never mind who's to blame: we should be on our knees giving thanks for what we actually got - and that holds good whether you cheer for England or anyone else.

Say you're a Holly or a Bollywood producer and you're making a film. No matter how big the star and how temperamental the director, you know a film is a team thing. But you still get Mozart to write the music. You know you'll get trouble, because Mozart is like that. Quite a lot of people will end up hating him: bloody WM, we'd be better off without him. You'll probably vow never to employ him again. But your film will be blessed with the sweetest music anyone ever wrote: so you're ahead on the deal. You've won.

What's a cricket team for? What's any sporting team all about? Is it a club of like-minded fellows? A group of dear old pals? Is it all about happiness? Or the expression of certain agreed virtues? Or is it about pursuing victory - and by implication excellence - with every resource at your disposal?

The England cricket team was lucky enough to get hold of a cricketing Mozart. He came as an émigré and a mercenary. England wanted his runs, he wanted the opportunity to make them, and the proper reward for doing so. It was a deal: the best kind of business, in which both parties walk away feeling like winners. At any rate at first.