To see Kevin Pietersen's controversial left-handed six, click here

It is a sign of genius that a player can make the laws of a game look foolish while not obviously cheating. Muttiah Muralitharan is the only player of recent times to have forced a change to the Laws of Cricket, so that now the definition of a fair ball includes the phrase, “shall not debar a bowler from flexing or rotating the wrist in the delivery swing”. Now Kevin Pietersen has forced MCC, the custodians of the Laws, to take a closer look at the fairness and legality of switch-hitting.

The MCC had already been prompted by the ICC's cricket committee to look into the issue, and were due to meet today anyway, primarily to talk through the change to Law 6 (the bat) that is due to come into operation on October 1. That this change was four years in the making suggests that any alterations to the Laws as a result of Pietersen's antics on Sunday are unlikely in the short term.

Regardless of that, there is no doubt that Pietersen has brought the subject into sharp focus; specifically, whether a batsman who has the ability to hit both right and left-handed has an unfair advantage and whether by doing so he infringes the Spirit of the Game. At the heart of the issue is Law 24.1, which states that “the umpire shall ascertain whether the bowler intends to bowl right-handed or left-handed and whether over or round the wicket.” It goes on to say that the delivery shall be deemed unfair if the bowler fails to notify the umpire of any change, who shall then be obliged to call no-ball.

The argument goes that what should apply to bowlers ought to apply to batsmen; that a batsman should inform the umpire if he intends to switch method. And switch method Pietersen certainly did: not only did he turn his hands around on the bat handle, but he changed body position, essentially presenting a mirror image of his right-handed self to the bowler. Not just that, but he did so well before the bowler got into his delivery stride.

Pietersen's bemused reaction to the subsequent fallout is understandable. The great players defy convention and search endlessly for an edge, whether that is in physical and mental preparation or technical knowhow. Pietersen would argue that his switch-hitting combined an element of all three: he visualised the shot in bed the night before (come on, Jessica, you've been married only a few months); he practised it in the nets and then had the nerve and the physical strength to pull it off in the match. Everyone has the opportunity to play the shot; only one man did. Why should his genius be clipped?

Well, switch-hitting does raise some questions. When does a right-hander become a left-hander (presumably, he must change stance as well as grip); once a right-handed batsman becomes left-handed, which is the leg side and which is off; how does the umpire determine what is a wide and how does he determine which stump, for leg-before's sake, is the batsman's leg stump, and what if suddenly there are now more than two fielders behind square on what has become the leg side?

A batsman could, in a Test match, for example, decide that an off spinner is likely to get him out leg-before and change to left-handed so that the ball would be considered to have pitched, now, outside the leg stump, so removing the possibility of the leg-before. For the bowlers, the field positioning is a key argument. Setting the field for a right-hander only to find yourself bowling to a left-hander is fundamentally unfair.

For those of us not primarily concerned with the Laws, though, entertainment is also an issue. Pietersen's two strikes against New Zealand in the first one-day international at the Riverside, were moments that genuinely shocked, in the best possible sense of the word, and such moments should not be lost to sport. Scott Styris's reaction - at once bemused, humiliated and admiring - summed up the mood in the ground exquisitely.

The batsman-dominated commentary box on Sunday felt that Pietersen should not be punished for his daring. Mikey Holding, not surprisingly, was the lone dissenter, muttering off air that it takes skill and nerve to pick a lock and steal some jewellery, but that does not make it right. Holding sits on the ICC's cricket committee. Even though I am concerned about the growing imbalance between bat and ball, I remain sanguine about this apparent unfairness. I think it would be a shame if such innovation and sheer bravura were lost to the game.

So what can MCC do to not discourage such wondrous feats as Pietersen's on Sunday, but at the same time maintain the integrity of the game and intrinsic fairness to bowlers? Well, it could consider the following: that a fielding side should not be penalised once the batsman decides to switch-hit. That is to say, once a right-handed batsman has changed both grip and stance to become in effect a left-hander, the bowler ought to be allowed to bowl both sides of the wicket, without incurring a wide, and, taking that one stage further, he ought to be allowed to get leg-befores by pitching both sides of the wicket as well. At a stroke, the kind of genius we saw on Sunday would not be prevented, but would be discouraged by the subsequent advantage accruing to the bowler.

Whatever the outcome in time, this issue marks Pietersen as one of the most influential cricketers of the day. Cricket history has generally shown bowlers to have been the most innovative and forward-thinking: overarm bowling, the googly, reverse swing, the doosra, the flipper - all bowler inventions to keep the batsman in check.

Now Pietersen, ironically a man hitherto regarded by some as not the sharpest tool in the box, is helping to redefine the way we think about the game. That in itself is a definition of greatness.