LONDON – Kevin Pietersen launched another attack on his former England teammates, saying aspiring players did not want to play in the same team as the bowlers he once labelled “bullies”.
The incendiary claim comes in a new documentary, KP: Story of a Genius, produced by Sky and presented by Sportsmail columnist Nasser Hussain, which will be screened in summer.
In it, Pietersen says that Stuart Broad, Jimmy Anderson, Graeme Swann and wicket-keeper Matt Prior were such a negative presence that they deterred players from wanting to play international cricket.
“You are playing for your country,” Pietersen told Hussain in a snippet released by Sky yesterday.
“But some players did not want to be selected because of what Broad, Anderson, Prior and Swann were like.”
The documentary will look at both sides of the story, with Andrew Strauss criticising Pietersen for the ‘textgate’ scandal, revealed in 2012 by Sportsmail, that marred the end of his England career, and former England captain Michael Vaughan saying KP should have been sacked for sending those messages about Strauss to South African players.
In the documentary, Pietersen claims he sent the messages to South African players “because they were my mates”.
%%%twitter https://twitter.com/KP24?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@KP24is on a mission to save the rhino. 🦏
Kevin Pietersen: Beast of Man is available on @bbcsounds. 🎧 pic.twitter.com/HKrRVGt6Mj
— BBC (@BBC)