At dinner with friends during the Lord's Test I was mocked gently for bestowing greatness on Kevin Pietersen after his first-day hundred. They were right, of course: greatness comes with the perspective of time. Bernard Levin called the process the “sieve of history”; only when the sieve has stopped shaking and all the dross has been removed can what is left behind justly be called great.

Fair enough. Suffice to say that, for me, Pietersen is the most fascinating of the present crop of international batsmen. Given a choice, he is the one I would choose to watch and, given that he is a length or two ahead of the field in the narcissism stakes, I suspect that he would say the same. Here are a few reasons why he is such a special player.

Balance

“Footwork and balance and their co-ordination will always remain the cornerstones of batting” - Don Bradman, The Art of Cricket

It is no coincidence that many of the great batsmen (Bradman, Sachin Tendulkar, Sunil Gavaskar, Brian Lara) have been relatively short men. A short, compact physique, with a low centre of gravity, helps balance. Pietersen is 6ft 4in, but in his stance, with his knees bent and his bottom sticking out as if he is flashing a moonie at the back of the school bus, he makes himself into a much smaller man without - because his backlift and hands are so high - losing the advantage of height.

Most tall batsmen struggle with their head position. That is why Tony Greig, for example, stood with his bat off the ground. Alastair Cook spoke yesterday of a technical glitch that is infecting his game, where his head falls over to the off side, unbalancing him at the crease. Pietersen's balance is superb. You do not think so? The next time you are facing a spinner, try going down the pitch along the line of off stump and, while the ball is in the air, change direction so you hit the ball on the line of leg stump.

Facing Shane Warne's drift in the 2006-07 Ashes series, that is what Pietersen was doing all the time. Always on the balls of his feet, he is amazingly nimble for a big man. Like a ballet dancer.

Athleticism

“The greatest of players can improve by means of concentration and practice, but the natural athlete must start with a great advantage” - Bradman

If you were born in Pietermaritzburg in the first half of the 20th century, you had drawn a bad ticket in the lottery of life. Especially if you were Boer (the British built a concentration camp there to house Boer women and children during the Second World War) or, later, if you were not white (Gandhi was thrown off a train in Pietermaritzburg for refusing to sit in a third-class seat while holding a first-class ticket).

If you were a young (white) sportsman, though, Pietermaritzburg at the end of the 20th century was a winning ticket. Pietersen led an outdoor life from an early age, swimming competitively with his brothers in the family's large swimming pool and enjoying sport all year round. “I went to school to play sport,” he says in his autobiography. Blessed with this start, Pietersen added a strict training regime when he became a professional cricketer, taking creatine, the muscle-building supplement, for a year or two, to increase his power.

Now, Pietersen is a magnificent physical specimen. Sam Bradley, the England strength and physical conditioning coach, has said that Pietersen is a role model to the rest of the team in this regard. Bradley said that recent tests show Pietersen to be heavier but leaner (ie, stronger with less fat) than a year ago. Compare that with members of the South Africa team, who look out of condition.

For all Pietersen's occasional negative publicity, when was the last time he was involved in a drunken escapade? He drinks, but in moderation and at the right time. When you travel with the team, you see all kinds of shenanigans, but I have never seen Pietersen behave irresponsibly. Discipline and athleticism combined.

Intelligence

“My movements at the crease depended to some extent on the type of bowler who was operating” - Bradman

Intelligence and Pietersen are not obvious bedfellows, especially to snobs who think of intelligence only in terms of schooling. Pietersen may not have a university degree (in his autobiography he admits to three A levels) and he may not be able to translate Homer, but he is England's most cricket-savvy batsman.

Instinct - the ability simply to react rather than think - is critical, but just as important is the thought given to his approach to each bowler. Some of it is premeditated: watch, for example, how far across his stumps he goes to Makhaya Ntini to open up the leg side against a bowler who bowls from near the return crease.

Equally, Pietersen is adept at changing his approach according to circumstance. This is his how he described his thinking behind the switch-hit for six off Muttiah Muralitharan at Edgbaston two years ago: “To understand that shot you need to know that I had just come down the wicket to Murali three times; I had hit him over mid-off for four, through mid-off for four and then I had cut the doosra for four. Murali moved his mid-off and mid-on back and put men at deep square leg and cow corner. All my options had been blocked.” Cue the switch-hit, which he had practised assiduously for just that situation.

Yogi Berra, the baseball legend, is reputed to have said: “Think? How can you hit and think at the same time?” Pietersen does.

Big-match temperament

“A tremendous premium must be placed on this peculiar characteristic, which is probably more essential for a batsman in cricket than any other sport” - Bradman

When is an international batsman most nervous? At the start, of course. Pietersen's impact at the beginning of his international career was immediate. The beginning was in Zimbabwe, but because we are talking about big-match temperament, let us fast-forward to South Africa in 2005. Pietersen had many things to cope with, not least the start of his international one-day career proper and sustained abuse from those who thought that an Afrikaans-speaking boy from Pietermaritzburg ought to be playing for the home team. Pietersen scored three hundreds and averaged 151.

His Test debut was against Australia at Lord's in the summer of 2005. Pietersen went to the crease with England 18 for three and Glenn McGrath dominant. He scored 57, was the ninth man out and by the end of the innings McGrath was bowling to him with six men on the boundary. Since then the two biggest games that Pietersen has played have been at the Brit Oval against Australia, with the Ashes at stake, and his first Test against the country of his birth. He scored big hundreds in both matches. English cricket has been littered with talented players who have frozen on the big stage. Pietersen is not one.

Desire must be at the heart of it. He has not forgotten his tough cricketing apprenticeship, moving from home, living in a one-bedroom studio in Cannock, Staffordshire, and playing as an overseas player there. That the club owed him some money at the end of his stay is a running sore through his autobiography. It is a cliché to say that a tough upbringing produces better sportsmen, but I do not think Pietersen has forgotten his time at Cannock.

Attacking flair

“It is a batsman's duty to take the initiative and play shots” - Bradman

Know your limitations is a fair motto for less talented, but the best players attack. Only once, in the early stages of the series against New Zealand last winter, did Pietersen seem to want to blunt his flair and attacking instincts. For a while he looked, in practice and in the match, as though he was trying to become more regimented, hitting the ball straight in the “V” between mid-off and mid-on.

Pietersen is at his best when he uses his wrists to hit the ball where bowlers do not expect him to. It is time to worry when he stops playing the “flamingo” shot (the one-legged whip through mid-wicket). At their best, Ian Bell and Michael Vaughan are more pleasing on the eye, but Pietersen extends the boundaries of the possible. There is not a more dangerous player in the England team.

Greatness comes with the judgment of time. How much time do you need?

Explore Cricket

• Counties