Cook would have quit over KP, say reports

The depth of the “massive trust issue” that has scuppered Kevin Pietersen’s aspirations to resume his international career appear to be becoming clearer with reports that England captain Alastair Cook indicated he would quit his post if the outspoken batsman returned.

Pietersen, who jetted out of London yesterday headed for Dubai where he will recuperate from the calf and achilles tendon injuries he suffered during his career-best 355no for Surrey this week, was told on Monday he was not part of England’s international plans for the current UK summer.

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That message was bluntly delivered by his former England captain Andrew Strauss, now the England and Wales Cricket Board’s Director of Cricket, citing the view that “over months and years, trust has eroded between Kevin Pietersen and the ECB”.

Other than confirming there was “a massive trust issue between me and Kevin”, Strauss did not expand on the other sources of that mistrust within the ECB.

However, the UK’s Mirror newspaper reported today that Cook made it clear he was prepared to renounce the England captaincy and his place in the Test team if the path was cleared for Pietersen to return to international cricket after more than a year on the outer.

The report also claimed that Cook “represented the feelings of several players” and that view was shared by unnamed members of the ECB administration who indicated they would reconsider their positions if Pietersen was welcomed back into the fold.

“There are people who would absolutely have walked away rather than deal with Kevin again,” the Mirror quotes a source close to the ECB.

"He has made life incredibly difficult for a large number of people over the years and the idea that he might be back horrified them.”

While the identity and role of those aggrieved parties remains unknown, among the ECB’s current staff is former England coach Andy Flower who is now technical director of elite coaching based at the national cricket performance centre in Loughborough.

Like Pietersen, he was moved on in the fall-out from England’s five-nil Ashes whitewash in Australia last year.

South African-born Pietersen launched a stinging attack on Flower, the former Zimbabwe captain, in his subsequent autobiography in which he described Flower as “contagiously sour, infectiously dour” and that 95 per cent of the time in which Flower was in charge “he was f…ing horrendous”.

In the wake of the caustic assessments in Pietersen’s book, both Cook and Strauss (who at that time was working as a Sky Sports commentator) rallied to the defence of Flower and bemoaned the damage the book had inflicted upon English cricket.

“A lot of this that’s going on at the moment is madness,” Strauss said at the time.

“All this tit-for-tat stuff, I don’t think really helps the England cricket team.

“Andy Flower is a guy of complete integrity. He’s achieved phenomenal things, and rightly should be regarded as one of England’s great coaches.”

Cook, a former teammate of Flower’s with county side Essex and Strauss’s long-time Test opening partner, also dismissed Pietersen’s assessment of the coach who led England to the number one ranking in Test and limited-overs formats and claimed he was “hurt” by other characterisations contained in the book.

"I'm very proud of that era," Cook said of the period in which Pietersen claimed he ‘hated’ playing under Flower and because of the culture of bullying that was allowed to exist within the England team.

"I really only have fond memories of that, but I do believe it's kind of been tarnished and I'm sad about that."

With Strauss and Cook occupying key positions within the England power structure and Flower still involved in the performance of the national team and the development of emerging talent, it is not difficult to surmise where the “trust” issue has set down deep roots.

Pietersen also wrote of his own feeling of betrayal during Strauss’s captaincy tenure when a parody Twitter account that mocked the batsman was set up, with suggestions it was being fed information from within the England dressing room.

Pietersen wrote that the breach of trust carried to him lowest ebb as a player, and led him to break down in tears in front of Flower during a Test match against South Africa in 2012.

“I was told by a senior (England) player that the Twitter account was being run from inside the dressing room,” Pietersen wrote in his book KP.

“I was completely broken, absolutely finished, mentally shot.”

The views of others who were targeted in Pietersen’s book might become clearer tomorrow when England fast bowler Stuart Broad is scheduled to hold a media conference ahead of the coming international summer that begins next week with a Test match against New Zealand.

Broad was one of the team members that Pietersen accused of “running the dressing room” and therefore being complicit in the bullying culture that he claimed was led by former wicketkeeper Matt Prior and ex-spinner Graeme Swann.

However, Pietersen has received some support from his former captain and England teammate Andrew Flintoff who – when the news of Pietersen’s exclusion from England’s immediate Test planning was revealed – conceded that the 34-year-old’s personality was “high maintenance”.

“Then again so was I, but you do grow up and change,” Flintoff tweeted earlier this week.

Flintoff appeared on the UK’s ‘talkSPORT’ radio network where he told former England teammate Darren Gough that he did not rate Pietersen among “my top 10 most difficult players” he shared a dressing room with from the time he made his England debut in 1998 .

“There were some real prima donnas,” Flintoff said yesterday, without naming names.

“But he (Pietersen) would get in my top three best players (that Flintoff played alongside).

“I’ve captained him – he can be hard work, there’s no getting away from it.

“This happens in a dressing room, you do spend time with people who do rub you up the wrong way from time to time.

“I respect the fact that (Strauss) has made a decision, he’s called time on it and done something but I’m not sure I agree with his decision.

“I think the … people who are going to miss out are the fans.

“I’ve got young kids who want to watch Jos Buttler, they want to watch Kevin Pietersen, they want to watch Joe Root – they want to see lads who go out there and entertain.”