Pietersen should not have been picked for England after 2012: Michael Vaughan

Former 2005 Ashes winning England captain Michael Vaughan said in an interaction with foxsports.com.au that Kevin Pietersen should not have played for England after the controversial text message incident from South Africa’s tour of England back in 2012.

Vaughan, who has played 82 Test matches and led his country for 4 years, said, “It had a huge effect on English cricket for a while and I still think it has a massive effect on a few individuals. I still think there are a few who have come out of this worse. I’ve never seen 100 per cent clarification that that was the case, but if he did, I personally said at the time and have said it since, he shouldn’t have ever played for England again.”

“If an England player, doesn’t matter who it is, (is) found to be texting the opposing international team how to get one of your own players out I don’t think he should have played for England again,” the triumphant captain of the memorable 2005 Ashes series said.

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Pietersen, who was born in Pietermaritzburg, made his First Class Cricket debut for South African domestic side, Natal, before moving to England in the year 2000, after voicing his displeasure at the allegedly racial quota system South African Cricket might have had. He played for County side Nottinghamshire for 4 years to be eligible for selection in the English side. He burst into the International scene emphatically in the One Day series between South Africa and England in the 2004-05 season. During South Africa’s tour of England in 2012, Pietersen was accused of suggesting ways to get Strauss out in his some of his text messages, that was getting Morne Morkel to bowl from round the wicket, hit the length and seam the ball away from Strauss, and get him caught by the wicketkeeper or at the slips. After the Headingley Test, Pietersen was dropped from the remainder of the Test series due to the same.

Pietersen was among the first few England players to feature in the IPL and was the joint-costliest buy in the 2009 auction along with teammate Andrew Flintoff which created a problem within the English dressing room as well, said Vaughan. Pietersen was bought by the Royal Challengers Bangalore for a staggering $1.55 million, which triggered the thought within his teammates that he chose the lucrative T20 league over playing Test Cricket for England.

“I think there was a lot of jealousy. And the players will completely deny it now but I think there was at the time when Kevin was on a massive contract. There were all sorts of whispers and rumours of cliques in the team. There was a little band of a few; Graeme Swann, Tim Bresnan, (James) Anderson, (Stuart) Broad and Matt Prior. The whispers were they were on one side and Kevin was kind of standing on his own on the other side.” Vaughan said.

Vaughan went on to say that all the spotlight was on Pietersen at that point of time, which opened up a Pandora’s box.
“It wasn’t anything other than that Kev around that time wanted to go to the IPL. That’s how it all started to blow up and that’s when those factions came into play. He was saying to the team he wanted to play because it would further the development of the one-day team and all the one-day players would get the chance to play there and improve their game. They deemed that he just wanted to go for the money. He was on a big contract while not many of the other players were even getting sniffed at. It was very much Kevin against the team in terms of that one.”