KP's fear
Kevin Pietersen fears that the Achilles injury that has hampered his summer could end up ruling him out at some stage of the Ashes series. Pietersen, who made an unusually ponderous 44 from 101 balls on the third day of the second Test at Lord's, has undergone four injections to get him fit for the series, and wrote in his newspaper column that the injury has been playing on his mind "all day and every day".
"People who have had injuries know that it definitely does affect the way they play," Pietersen wrote in The News of the World. "It doesn't really affect my strokeplay but running between wickets and diving around is problematic. This is the first injury I have had and, mentally, they really do get to you. I've had two injections into my back -- a perineural and an epidural. And I've had a cortisone and a homeopathic injection into my Achilles."
Pietersen left the field for 11 overs to receive treatment during Australia's first innings on Friday, and admitted that it had been "a bad day". Nevertheless, after back-to-back matches at Cardiff and Lord's, the teams have a decent break before the third Test at Edgbaston at the end of the month, and Pietersen remains optimistic that the day-to-day management of the injury will get him fit in time for the start.
"Right now, it's just a case of getting through the match and making sure I get myself right because there's a 10-day break at the end which will give me a chance to rest up," he wrote. "I'm not ruling anything out in terms of the rest of the series. What I will say is I am doing everything I can to get myself right. I'll do anything I can do to play."
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