Sport | Cricket

Pietersen wins attention with collage of tattoos

Kevin Pietersen is a showman. He loves to catch people's attention not only with his exploits on the field but off it too.

  • By K.R.Nayar, Staff Reporter
  • Published: 23:34 May 3, 2009
  • Gulf News

  • Image Credit: AP
  • England's Kevin Pietersen plays a shot against India during their Champions Trophy match in Jaipur.

Jaipur: Kevin Pietersen is a showman. He loves to catch people's attention not only with his exploits on the field but off it too.

It's a rainbow of colours on his hair and a collage of tattoos on his body.

The 6.04 feet Pietersen walks tall, looks stern, but turns out to be an extremely friendly person.

His charming smile attracts one and all, and he does not hesitate to talk about himself and his image.

"Let's see how these colours look on my hair. Surely it is bound to attract a lot of attention," he said. "I just like to be different, just for some fun," the colourful star added in the same breath.

Pietersen admits that his teammates keep pulling his leg and make fun of his hair colours, but he is not bothered by it at all. Even when it comes to clothes, he freaks out on fashionable outfits, but prefers to be in cargo pants most of the time.

But what he enjoys doing the most is being out in the sun.

So the Jaipur heat seems hardly a bother for Pietersen. He sat shirtless for quite a while out in the sun even after most of his teammates had gone in.

Every tattoo on his body has a story behind it and Pietersen is quite eager to reveal it to anybody interested in knowing about it. "Darren Gough got a tattoo of three lions done during a tour of South Africa. So I too got it done before leaving the place," he said.

His one-day international shirt bears the number 185. He got that number tattooed on the inside of his arm. Same is the case with his Test number 626.

Isn't the tattooing procedure painful? Although the procedure itself is quite painful, he doesn't seem to be bothered abut it; instead he looked very happy with the results.

Lovingly called KP by one and all, Kevin Pietersen is just Kepes for his team-mates. "Kepes come over," shouted a teammate from the dressing room.

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