Kevin Pietersen questions Alastair Cook’s credentials to be England captain and has voiced his dismay at a “bullying” culture he believes has long undermined the national team.
Pietersen’s autobiography, released to the media yesterday and set to go on general sale on Thursday, reveals his despair at the regime overseen by former coach Andy Flower in which he claims cliques took root and exerted an overwhelming negative influence.
The record-breaking South African-born batsman, axed by the England and Wales Cricket Board eight months ago after the team’s whitewash Ashes defeat, is especially scathing about Flower and wicketkeeper Matt Prior.
He describes Cook as a “decent guy” but one “paralysed” by the situation he was put in.
Cook survived as captain following Flower’s move to a different job at the ECB and Pietersen’s sacking, and remains in situ alongside returning coach Peter Moores as England embark on a World Cup winter.
But Pietersen, free to tell his side of the story following the end last week of a confidentiality clause agreed as part of his severance with the ECB, fears Cook may not be the right man to help forge the ‘new era’.
His doubts are sown by what he perceives as the opener’s failure to repay the support he insists he gave his captain throughout last winter’s shambles.
“I was disappointed. I had gone out of my way to support him on the Ashes tour,” Pietersen writes in KP: The Autobiography.
“The next time I saw Cooky he was staring at his shoes while I was being told I would not be included in the England squads in the Caribbean or in the World T20.
“I was disappointed in him then. I thought the way he behaved called into question his qualifications to be captain. But I know too that he is a decent guy and that he was paralysed by how uncomfortable it all was.”
Pietersen spoke of his worries, in a pre-publication interview with the Daily Telegraph, that the ECB is in danger of “literally ruining [Cook’s] career”.
He added in his book: “Alastair Cook knows that on the Ashes tour there were absolutely no problems with me in the dressing room.
“Alastair Cook knows that I scored the most runs for England on that tour. Alastair Cook knows that I had his back 100 per cent.
“I know, though, that while Cooky is a nice man, he is also a company man. A safe pair of hands; he won’t rock the boat.”
Pietersen is disdainful about Flower – “Contagiously sour. Infectiously dour. He could walk into a room and suck all the joy out of it in five seconds” – and Prior.
He claims they were instrumental in allowing bullying to take hold, with the culture demanding that those who made errors in the field apologised to the bowler.
“The bowlers were given so much power,” he said.
“I thought, ‘I reckon I could hit these guys. Who do you think you are, to ask for an apology from someone who’s trying his heart out? Are you perfect, are you never going to drop a catch? Are you never going to bowl a wide?”
Pietersen has little remaining respect either for ECB managing director Paul Downton, whose decision it was ultimately to agree the end of his stellar but controversial 10-year international career.
Pietersen blames Prior – “a bad influence … who picks on players” in the first instance.
“He’d been wearing a face that was half grief and half thunder [after being dropped], and then all of a sudden he was making a whole lot of noise in this players’ meeting. I had a problem with that.
“Then Prior said, ‘f*** Flower, this is not his team’.
“He said … ‘it’s not just our fault but the management’s too. They are creating an awful work environment. They treat us like schoolboys’.
“The spin ever since that day has been that I judged the atmosphere wrong. I don’t think I misread anything about the mood in that room.
“I said my piece, nothing anyone hadn’t heard before – including Andy Flower.”
