England's gripping onslaught as Pietersen's six-hitting exploits defy belief

There are moments in sport that transcend the result of the game and live long in the memory. Kevin Pietersen provided two of them yesterday with cricketing shots that defied both the coaching manual and belief.

When Pietersen, during an unbeaten century that earned England a crushing first NatWest one-day international victory, twice turned round, changed his grip and hit New Zealand's Scott Styris for two left-handed sixes, he was taking his sport to another level.

He was doing something that surely no-one else in the cricketing world, past or present, could do. It was the work of a sporting genius. Reverse sweeping, of course, is nothing new.

Pietersen: right hand...

... and also left hand

Yet, most practitioners of a shot that initially offended the purists but has become an acceptable part of cricket keep their hands in a conventional grip. In essence, if they are right-handed they stay right-handed and the ball usually stays on the ground.

Where Pietersen was different at the Riverside was that he not only turned himself into a genuine lefthander before each ball had been bowled in this first of five 50-over matches, but he cleared the ropes twice with effortless ease.

It was like Ronnie O'Sullivan, another sportsman for whom the word genius can be justifiably applied, playing snooker with his "wrong" hand. In both cases an outsider would never know that they do not usually play that way.

Pietersen, of course, has done this before. He deposited a Murali full toss into the Edgbaston crowd left-handed during England's Test series against Sri Lanka two years ago.

But these shots were even more extraordinary because they came off a medium-pacer in Styris, who was bowling at 70mph and saw what Pietersen was doing. The blows were pre-meditated yet Styris could do nothing to stop him.

Pietersen: "I've just played a new shot ... people should be positive about it"

Not that everybody was enthralled by Pietersen's audacity. The bowlers' union, led by former West Indies great Michael Holding, pointed out that a bowler has to tell the batsman which arm he is bowling with and whether he is coming over or round the wicket.

Should a batter have to inform his opponents if he wants to change hands? It is an interesting point but a curmudgeonly one in the face of such spontaneous brilliance.

"That's ridiculous," bristled Pietersen about any perceived objections to his flamboyance. "There are so many new things coming into cricket and I've just played a new shot. People should be positive about it rather than finding fault all the time."

And to think that only on Saturday, Pietersen was talking about how Twenty20 was going to be the death of the 50-over one-day international.

Well, he struck two enormous blows for the longer format yesterday, even though New Zealand's feebleness ensured that a sparkling first half of the game was followed by an all too predictably dull second. No matter. New Zealand are a much better one-day side than Test outfit, but now England have blown them away in both 20 and 50-over cricket after their 2-0 Test series victory.

They will go to Edgbaston for the second match on Wednesday believing they should not only avenge their oneday series tour defeat of earlier this year, but do it emphatically.

For that, of course, they can thank Pietersen. He came out of his technique induced, semi-slumber by scoring a century in the Test victory at Trent Bridge and followed it here at Chester-le-Street with his sixth one-day century for England, his first since the World Cup last year and his first on English soil.

In this mood he looks like a batsman who is not only going to become very rich in these lucrative times but one who is also going to become one of the greats of the game.

Pietersen, in only his third oneday innings for England at No 3, preceded his unorthodox strokes with a more conventional straight six off Daniel Vettori and also struck eight classy fours. But, if anything, he was overshadowed by Owais Shah in a partnership of 73 in 35 balls at the end of the innings that took England to 307 for five and out of sight of New Zealand.

Sidefoot home: Collingwood tries to run out Southee

Shah remains something of an unfulfilled figure but here he came in, after Paul Collingwood had enjoyed a welcome return to form with 64 in a partnership of 136 with Pietersen, to steal the show in the closing overs.

The Middlesex batsman struck three sixes in his 25-ball 49 and each of them was longer - recorded at 76, 87 and 91 metres - than anything struck by Pietersen, Collingwood or Ian Bell, who had been caught off a Kyle Mills no-ball at the very start of England's innings but recovered to show promise as an opener with 46.

It was all too much for the dispirited Kiwis, who were beaten from the moment their dangerman, Brendon McCullum, drilled Stuart Broad's first ball straight to cover.

Broad, who Pietersen later described as 'a Glenn McGrath in the making', was outstanding, while Collingwood claimed four cheap wickets at the death as the Kiwis were dismissed for 193 to hand England victory by 114 runs.

First one-day blood to England but that, in time, will be forgotten. Kevin Pietersen's sixes certainly will not.