Leader by example

Pietersen: new England captain

What you've got to do as a player is to make sure that you're complying to your number one job - and his number one job for England is not the captaincy, it's scoring runs.

Graham Gooch
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Former England captain Graham Gooch insists that scoring runs is still the number one job for Kevin Pietersen.

South Africa-born Pietersen was named as England's new Test and one-day captain on Monday, just 24 hours after Michael Vaughan stepped down as Test captain following five years in the job.

Vaughan's England average dipped after he became captain and Gooch hopes that off-the-field pressures will not have an impact on Pietersen's role as the team's most dominant batsman.

But Gooch, whose average actually increased after he was given the England captaincy, is backing the 28-year-old to thrive under the responsibility.

"This is a bigger job than just captaining the England cricket team," Gooch told Sky Sports News.

"Effectively you are leading English cricket and the English game. Hopefully that responsibility will dawn on Kevin and his performances will improve as well.

"They've been pretty good so far and if they improve then that will be good for English cricket.

"Your immediate challenge is that you've got to get your head around all the things that happen as an England captain - all the people that want a piece of you, all the people that want an interview and different things from outside the cricket arena that can eat into your cricket time. That's what he's got to be careful of.

"What you've got to do as a player is to make sure that you're complying to your number one job - and his number one job for England is not the captaincy, it's scoring runs.

"He has to make sure he protects his practice structure so that's not interfered with.

"Walking onto the field is the easy bit of being England captain, it's all the things that happen off the field that can worry you and unsettle you.

"He's got to guard against that and he's going to need a lot of help and guidance from the coaching staff."

Right choice

Gooch was in no doubt that Pietersen was the right choice for the job, although he admitted the England selectors were hardly blessed with a long list of suitable candidates.

Pietersen is one of the few England players guaranteed a place in both Test cricket and one-day cricket and Gooch feels that was a key factor in his selection.

"I think it's the right decision," he said.

"It's a good idea to unify the two formats of the game under one leader and the continuity will be there.

"He's certainly England's most dominant player and he's someone the rest of the players will respect because of his performances.

"I don't think there was a lot of room for manoeuvre actually. It's too early for Alastair Cook because he needs to establish himself in both forms of cricket and I don't think he's done that in one-day cricket completely.

"Andrew Strauss has not been in the one-day side and I don't think they were going to go back to Andrew Flintoff after what happened in Australia, so Pietersen's the logical choice. He's an exciting choice as well.

"It's an exciting time for England."