text: Kevin Pietersen battered Oxford’s students for 170 off 149 deliveries in his first game of red-ball cricket for 15 months – then insisted the incoming ECB chairman Colin Graves has told him everyone has a ‘clean slate’. Pietersen’s quest for an improbable return to international cricket began as his scriptwriter must have known it would: with sumptuous strokes, a standing ovation and much of the old bravado. The fact that his first hundred since the Old Trafford Test against Australia in August 2013 came against a modest attack, at a windswept Oxford, in a game not deemed first-class, is beside the point. Pietersen’s only hope of playing for England again is to score lots of runs for Surrey – wind, rain or shine. Here was the first box ticked, in style. Surrey's Kevin Pietersen (right) celebrates reaching his 100 during the three-day Match at The Parks . Pietersen makes his way out to the crease following the dismissal of Rory Burns . It was the 34-year-old's first appearance for Surrey since the LV= County Championship in June 2013 . Asked what Graves had said to him when the pair spoke over the phone last month, Pietersen replied: ‘He said he wants the best players playing for England, and everyone has a clean slate. Right now, it’s just about me hitting the red ball. I think it can help England going forward. ‘I took confidence from the way I played in Australia [at the Big Bash]. It was as well as I’ve ever batted. I’ve been given a lifeline, and I have an opportunity to get back to doing something I love that was taken away from me prematurely.’ England meet West Indies in Antigua on Monday, and comparisons will be inevitable. There will be mixed feelings both in the Caribbean and at Lord’s. Whether Pietersen’s journey will prove more futile than fruitful is another matter. The first aim of the new regime at the ECB has been to stop the sniping; the second may be to keep Pietersen sweet in case English cricket needs him after he retires, possibly in a mentoring capacity. Regardless, the evidence here – as if it were required – suggested he is deadly serious about reclaiming his place. Pietersen has played exclusively Twenty20 cricket throughout the world since being axed by England . A young spectator points to a dent in her mother's car made by one of Pietersen's shots . Pietersen made 62 on his only prior appearance at The Parks, for Nottinghamshire in April 2004 . With Surrey 122 for five at lunch, Pietersen (left) found himself on 47 not out from 58 balls . Nearly 10 years on from his Ashes-clinching century at The Oval, Pietersen cannot have imagined he would need to prosper in the Parks simply to stay afloat. But in front of a crowd of several hundred – almost unheard of in these parts – and with Surrey stumbling to 113 for five, he had a captive audience and a job to do. Pietersen was careful at first, waiting until his eighth delivery to pinch his first run in red-ball cricket since the Sydney Test of January 2014, and not finding the boundary until his 31st. Then he opened up. His fifty came from 63 balls, his hundred from 110, and his 150 from 137. By the time he was out for 170, caught at mid-on off the bowling of Abidine Sahande, a human sciences undergrad from St John’s College, the total was only 310. He knocked one spectator off his stool with a fierce drive, dented a Peugeot 207 with the first of two successive straight sixes, and unveiled his full repertoire. Stealing headlines and causing damage, Pietersen might never have been away. Pietersen's inclusion in Surrey's line-up attracted several hundred spectators and a number of photographers .
target: Kevin Pietersen scored a century for Surrey against Oxford MCCU .
  The 34-year-old scored an impressive 170 off 149 balls .
  It was Pietersen's first hundred since the Old Trafford Ashes Test in 2013 .
  England begin their first Test with the West Indies in Antigua on Monday .