Does KP know about Google?

Quotes from players’ press conferences don’t often shed a whole lot of light on the game, but there have been a couple of revealing ones this week. Mitchell Johnson, the new kid on the Aussie fast-bowling block, was asked about Kevin Pietersen, whom he dismissed last weekend with the age-old two-card trick – a nasty bouncer, which Pietersen fended off uncertainly, followed by a full-length ball in the slot outside off, which he edged, equally uncertainly, to Adam Gilchrist.

“My plan to him,” Johnson said, “was to get a short one in early and then try to get that nick. Against Pietersen maybe the short ball is something we will try - from the footage that I've seen, he likes to get forward early.”

Fairly standard stuff, but it told us that Johnson had done his homework. So what did Pietersen have to say? “He's a new bowler, check him out, probably see a lot of him over the winter. Never heard of him before.’

Never heard of him! What planet is KP on? Every England player has a Sony Vaio laptop. Does Pietersen just use his for watching DVDs of action movies, or does he study the footage that is routinely supplied of all opposing players? If he hasn’t heard of Johnson, has he heard of Google, or of Cricinfo? Has he, perhaps, been spending too much time hurtling from one promotional opportunity to another, and not enough doing his prep?

Pietersen is an untypical English batsman, with his aggression and audacity, but this attitude is all too familiar. Down the years, many an England batsman has gone to Australia and come up against an unknown fast bowler, just out of the bush. The difference this time is that Johnson has actually been around a while. Dennis Lillee was raving about him seven years ago. In 1999, he toured England with Australia Under-19s, taking two wickets in a Test in which Ian Bell made 90. He has played for Queensland on and off for years, and his international debut was last year, not last week.

Pietersen is a hard worker in the nets, known for practising in a highly targeted way, playing the same shot over and over. Even now, he is no doubt pushing forward purposefully to hundreds of deliveries from some willing young Ahmedabad left-armer. But in the internet age, preparation means getting on the net as well as into them.