Out-of-favour batsman Kevin Pietersen has accepted England cricket chief Andrew Strauss’ decision to exclude him from the England squad for this year’s Ashes series against Australia, saying the decision seemed right at this particular moment.
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Pietersen is now signed to play for the Dolphins in the Ram Slam T20 Challenge in South Africa and is expected to feature in five games between October and November.
Kevin Pietersen was thrilled to see England reclaim the Ashes this summer and accepts their performance went some way to vindicating his own exile. The former Nottinghamshire, Hampshire and Surrey right-hander continues to harbour hopes of a return to the England fold, though.
“I didn’t find it hard to watch at all”. “I love seeing England win”.
“But I am buzzing that England won and I am not looking back to the meeting in May thinking, ‘Oh goodness, things could have been so different'”. Seeing those guys play so well and just seeing the structure and the way it has developed makes me so happy.
“I can’t be with Test cricket”. As soon as I stop loving my batting and loving practising then I’ll stop.
“I love check cricket and I assume we owe it to the good recreation, which is check cricket, to converse positively about it. I don’t need to sit on this stage and say check cricket is lifeless”.
“But if that can’t happen I will keep plying my trade wherever I can over the next few years”.
Pietersen admitted that Strauss’s decision, which was made in a face-to-face meeting in London only hours after he had scored a career-best 355 not out for Surrey against Leicestershire at The Oval, had initially left him furious.
But just as the clamour for his re-introduction was reaching a crescendo in May, Strauss – who endured a fractious relationship with Pietersen while team-mates – ruled out any notion of a comeback in one of his first acts in his new European Central Bank role.
But, speaking on Thursday, the 35-year-old said: “He made his decision and it’s turned out absolutely fine”.
He said: “At the time I would have said it was ridiculous and nonsense, but England won the Ashes“. Absolutely [Strauss made the right decision].
“He’s done OK. Some of the stuff he has done with the England team and with getting past players back in the dressing room is brilliant”.
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“If [the door is shut] it is. I’m dwelling my life”. I don’t know either.
