His usual exuberance is often framed by that defensiveness - as well as a tendency to excessively underline his own happiness. There are moments in Pietersen's company when you imagine that he must write all his emails in capital letters and use an exclamation mark after every sentence just to convince you, or perhaps himself, that he really is having a truly wonderful life - or that he has suffered more than most to reach such fame and glory.
Cries of 'Bowling Mushy!' have become one of the familiar sounds of English summer, a paean of appreciation by team-mates for the diminutive, leg-spinning genius with the propeller arms and unpickable googly.
It was not always the case in a career that has lurched between conquest and crisis. Now, though, in his thirty-seventh year, Mushtaq Ahmed has settled into a period of impressive high achievement.
Three for 39 was his reward yesterday from almost 18 unrelenting overs of high-class spin, giving him six of 16 wickets to fall to England bowlers on a strip regarded as a graveyard for slow bowlers. That, for the statistically minded, is three times the number taken by England spinners in total in the last decade, and one of those went to Michael Atherton. The coach Duncan Fletcher is seeking affirmation from Panesar that he can deliver quality in all conditions, and, short of bowling on a flat Adelaide pitch in 100C heat - which might well be his lot in a few months - he has now given that.
What has become apparent is that Panesar offers a package that goes beyond the normal Fletcher ideal of all-round cricketing excellence. In difficult circumstances he will lend control: his economy rate of well under three runs per over is remarkable in these days of fast scoring. When there is something in the pitch, his eyes bulge and he smells blood. He will not burn out. Even the curmudgeonly, pragmatic coach, who in the past year, but for other factors, might have played each of Ian Blackwell, Shaun Udal and Jamie Dalrymple rather than Panesar, whose perceived deficiency with the bat and in the field were seen as insurmountable obstacles, must now realise he has a very special cricketer on his hands.
Panesar has taken 31 wickets in nine Tests and has consistently, and classically, dismissed the finest players of spin in the game. Yesterday, fittingly it seemed, he finished the match by luring Inzamam down the pitch so that the returning wicketkeeper Chris Read, a fellow who has done everything asked of him in this match, could deftly remove the bails. Somehow symbolic that.
He could have been a great cricketer. But he will settle for being a decent human being.
RIP George Best, 1946-2005.
The true reckoning is still eight months away, but the World Cup finals felt like a much happier prospect after an England victory that articulated, at last, some of the great talent of the golden generation under Sven Goran Eriksson's leadership. This was the domination, not the destruction, of Poland but for a football nation that has lived on scraps of late, Frank Lampard's winner was a sweet affirmation of some of the faith placed in this team.
Almost five years into the Eriksson era, and with such talent at his disposal, it had been assumed that the Swede's plan would be reaching fruition. He had been excused to an extent those quarterfinal exits to Brazil in Shizuoka and to Portugal in Lisbon, largely in part due to the memory of the 5-1 win in Munich. That showed England's potential under Eriksson but that was four Septembers ago.