Listen to KP speak.

There’s clarity, swift thought, quick talk. None of that “at the end of the day” repetition he gets to when the chips are down. When KP lost game after game in India, he ended many days, one-day after the other.

Listen to KP now. He sounds good enough to start scoring 158 again. KP on song is good for English cricket, the IPL, Mallaya’s investment, test cricket, yeah, most of all test cricket – he will come down the wicket, break his ribs, break the bowler, break it down again.

If he gets going in tests, the average paranoid Nasser Hussein will first look at him going beyond fifty. The Aussies, they will, never mind. I’ve always considered KP to be a bit of a Jatman – he has the madness to use the bat like a luth (stick) – in him, I also see a bit of Yuvi.

There is the desire to dominate, to whip the enemy into shape – kill the air with his fists, howl that mad war cry, these are the Beowulfs – they are already part of legend, no matter what they do or don't do from here.

English cricket craves KP, just as Indian cricket continues to crave Yuvraj. It’s a grand obsession, a pagallpan.