Kevin Pietersen on Tuesday accused the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) of deliberately undermining him and said that former England coach Andy Flower had a personal vendetta against him.
A day after his new autobiography was released to the press, former England batsman Pietersen continued his assault on the English cricket authorities in a series of media interviews.
Read more: Matt Prior vows to respond to allegations made by Kevin Pietersen in his upcoming book
Pietersen, 34, whose book claims that there was a culture of “bullying” within the England team, told the Radio Times magazine that the ECB used underhand tactics to tarnish his public image.
“The way the ECB works is it uses the media to get messages out there,” said Pietersen, whose international career was effectively ended by the ECB in February after England’s 5-0 Ashes whitewash in Australia.
“If the ECB could never get at me, because they knew they couldn’t really squash my personality, they would leak story after story to try to get me through the media.
“But unfortunately, I’ve got incredibly thick skin and it never worked.”
Pietersen also claimed that Flower had an issue with him throughout his five-year tenure as coach because the batsman had criticised the former Zimbabwe international’s role during his time as an assistant to Peter Moores.
“I think he [Flower] had it in for me ever since he took over because when I was captain, I didn’t think he was doing the second-in-command job really well,” Pietersen told BBC Radio 4.
“When I said to the ECB to just let me step down as captain and let Peter Moores continue, I gave my views on the coaching structure and I said that I didn’t think Andy Flower was fulfilling his role as the second-in-command properly.
“Then he got given the No 1 job, and it certainly felt, the way that he treated me throughout his coaching reign – that he was looking to try and find ways to get rid of me.”
Pietersen, England’s all-time leading run-scorer, said that he still did not understand why the ECB had decided to axe him.
“I still don’t know why I’m not playing for England. I’ve never been told,” he said.
“I’ve been told ‘cricketing reasons’. Well, ‘cricketing reasons’? ‘Disinterested’? Can you be disinterested when you’re facing 95 miles per hour from [Australia bowler] Mitchell Johnson?”
The ECB has yet to comment on Pietersen’s book, KP: The Autobiography, which is published tomorrow.
But former England spinner Graeme Swann, one of the players accused of bullying by Pietersen, has described it as “codswallop” and “the biggest work of fiction since Jules Verne”.
Of criticism of Matt Prior, who Pietersen had accused of leading a “bullying” culture in the England dressing room, Swann told the Daily Telegraph: “Tragically I don’t think Kev realises the one person who fought tooth and nail to keep him in the side is the one person he is now assassinating: Matt Prior.”
India take on West Indies with eye on the World Cup
MS Dhoni has hinted that India will play the one-day international series against the West Indies, which begins on Wednesday in Kochi, with the line-ups they will have for the World Cup title defence next year in Australia and New Zealand.
India will play five matches against the Caribbean side and Dhoni, the team’s captain, said that there was more for him and the selectors to look at than just winning the series.
“We want to see the bigger picture here,” he said on Tuesday.
“We want to do a few things because you don’t want to go to Australia and say we should have done this, we should have done that. We will see what our cricketers can offer. But it is important to start well and look to win the series.”
The other matches take place in Delhi (Saturday), Visakhapatnam (Tuesday), Dharamsala (October 17) and Kolkata (October 20).
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