A five-day break in Monaco with Jessica Taylor, his fiancée, before the Lord’s Test appears to have done much for Kevin Pietersen.

On July 11, he admitted on BBC Radio that he felt completely worn out, as much mentally as physically, after 4½ months of continuous cricket. It drew criticism in some quarters, notably from some ex-players, but, in reality, it was transparent honesty from an outspoken player.

Those close to Pietersen say that he was hurt by the criticism, even if he would not admit it yesterday, and that his prolonged celebrations at reaching his hundred, arguably the most theatrical at Lord’s by an England player, reflected that sense of injustice.

It was not as if Taylor, the singer with pop group Liberty X, had never witnessed one of his Test hundreds before. She has seen a number of them, most recently his double century against West Indies at Headingley Carnegie in May, and she should see a few more yet, for the pair have fixed their wedding date for December 29 in Gloucestershire.

Pietersen considered that his hundred here was his best in Test cricket, better even than his twin 158s against Australia at the Brit Oval and Adelaide. “I think this was my No 1,” he said. “Conditions were as testing as I have experienced in Test or county cricket. It was really, really difficult batting late last night [Saturday] and this morning. Conditions were a bit better after lunch today and their bowlers were a bit tireder. I thought it was time then to try to get us into a commanding position.”

Whereas most players are apt to tiptoe through the nineties, navigating them as sensitively as a ship passing through the Panama Canal, Pietersen likes to select full throttle. After batting stoically on Saturday evening when survival was all that really mattered, he had moved carefully from 15 to 62 in the morning session, facing 79 balls in the process.

Then came a postlunch blitzkrieg, culminating in a headlong charge through the nineties. Pietersen’s most outrageous shot, when he was on 82, was the prelude. An off-stump half-volley from Sri Sreesanth was whipped, very much in the manner of Viv Richards, through mid-wicket for four. The next ball he faced, in the next over from Anil Kumble, was hammered off the back foot to the extra-cover boundary, never an easy stroke to play.

To his next ball, Pietersen, ignoring the fate that had befallen Andrew Strauss when he came down the wicket to Kumble on 96, gave the leg spinner the charge and drove him gloriously back over his head for six to go to 99. After one sighter on that score, he flicked Kumble through mid-wicket for four, having spent only three balls in what for him were the nerveless nineties.

Pietersen’s celebrations were as extravagant as the fusillade of strokes that took him from 80 to 103 in ten balls. Running 30 yards past the umpire at the Nursery End to get as close as possible to his fiancée and his brother in the Edrich Stand, he pointed his bat at them before repeatedly twirling it and jumping for joy. Then came an embrace from his sixth-wicket partner, Matt Prior.

Pietersen’s adrenalin was pumping through his body so fast that even two balls after his hundred, when he took a single off Kumble, he was still fist-pumping.

He would have been painfully aware that, since his 226 at Headingley, he had passed fifty only once in 12 innings for England, on June 7 in the third Test against West Indies. His eight visits to the crease before this match had brought him a measly 123 runs.

That was why certain detractors felt Pietersen should have played a championship match for Hampshire, but he knew best, and the quality of yesterday’s performance showed that he knew right.