IT takes quite a cricketer to out-Flintoff Andrew Flintoff but, in Kevin Pietersen, England have found the one player with even more swagger than his fellow middle-order match-winner.

From the bleach blonde mottled hair to the feverish badge kissing that greets every batting milestone, Pietersen offers the kind of in-your-face brashness that had previously been Freddie's reserve.

His 13 one-day internationals have brought 649 runs at an average of a staggering 162.25 and, provided England's selectors are bold enough to take a calculated gamble, should have earned him a place in the side for the Ashes.

He has lived up to the hype that has followed him since he scored more than 1,000 first-class runs in his first season in English cricket and fulfilled the predictions of greatness made by Academy director Rodney Marsh who played a prominent role in his development.

Last weekend's match-winning 91 from just 65 balls was celebrated with typical cockiness - "it was one of the best, but I've hit better" - but, while Pietersen's bravado will always come to the fore, the last 12 months have finally drawn a line under an episode that had threatened to wipe the near-permanent smile from his face.

Four years ago, the player now being lauded as the hero of English cricket was being pilloried as the villain of the South African game.

Born in Pietermaritzburg to an English mother and an Afrikaan father, Pietersen was being already being groomed as a future Test star when he made his first-class debut as an off-spinning all-rounder for Natal in 1997.

But the nearer he got to the South African Test team, the more he saw his progress being thwarted by the controversial quota policy that seeks to redress some of the damage done by the country's divisive past.

The policy, by which a certain number of black players must be named in the national side despite the contrasting claims of their white counterparts, has caused consternation amongst veterans who lived through the Apartheid era.

So for an impulsive, and some would say nave, youngster such as Pietersen, it was perhaps inevitable that it would seem an unacceptable restraint. He left his homeland in 2001 and pledged his future to England straight away.

He is not the first South African sportsman to have done such a thing and, given the current rumblings of discontent in that country, he will almost certainly not be the last.

But he is one of the few to have turned his back on his homeland with such undisguised contempt for the sporting system and society he left behind.

"Pietersen has fuelled his own fire with inflammatory statements," claimed Telford Vice, a journalist with the South Africa-based MWP Sports Agency.

"He is the white man who, by whingeing about the way we do things in our new, shiny democracy, has taken a swing at our collective blackness."

His actions came back to haunt him last winter.

Despite making three faultless centuries during England's one-day series win in South Africa, Pietersen was mercilessly abused every time he strode out to the middle.

His parents were left in tears after he was booed at The Wanderers but, rather than making him re-think his decision to emigrate, the response of the South African crowd merely served to convince Pietersen he had done the right thing.

His first action after the tour was to be tattooed with the three lions he professes to wear with such pride.

"That's not a Christmas present, that's for life," he said. "If anybody comes up and tells me I'm not English, I'll be able to point to it and tell them they're wrong."

Yet, while Pietersen had eradicated any nagging doubts from his own mind, he returned to a new life with Hampshire still needing to win over some of the doubters in his adopted land.

England fans have embraced foreign-born stars before - Graeme Hick, Andrew Caddick and Allan Lamb were all raised overseas - but the sight of a swaggering South African professing a love of all things English initially proved a problematic image to stomach.

Not any more.

If Pietersen's winter exploits hinted at greatness, his match-winning display at Bristol on Sunday ensured his place in English cricket's hall of fame.

Few players have put Australia to the sword - even fewer have done it with the same ferocity and contempt.

No matter what happens over the rest of the summer, Pietersen need never worry about whether or not he is accepted again.

South Africans might not agree but, in English eyes at least, he has finally found his home.