Kevin Pietersen last featured for England across any form of the game in January last year. Since then, the maverick middle order batsman has been on an exile, imposed by the ECB. Every time, the key members within the ECB come up with unapologetically vague reasons to defend the exclusion of Pietersen from the England setup. On some days, a random person says that Pietersen is not a team player while on another day a person is quoted blaming his form.
The latest remark over Pietersen was made by none other than Andrew Strauss, the Director of England cricket. Strauss, who shared cold vibes with Pietersen in the latter half of his career, admitted that the right hander’s exclusion from the side has benefitted England cricket as a whole.
“I think that clarity has helped. The danger at that time was that particular issue would overshadow everything that happened on the pitch over the course of the summer. What I was trying to do was provide clarity going forward so everyone knew where they stood,” Strauss was quoted as saying by the BBC.
The southpaw continued, defending the ECB’s stance, “I think the team has moved on and the team is in a pretty good place. Some of those young guys have established themselves and that’s what we will be focusing on taking England forward.”
With this latest remark by Strauss, it is pretty obvious that Kevin Pietersen’s international career for England is in the dumps!