By CricketCountry Staff
England captain Andrew Strauss on Thursday hinted it will take a long time for batting star Kevin Pietersen to make a comeback in the side after the text message controversy.
Published: Aug 16, 2012, 01:21 PM (IST)
Edited: Aug 16, 2012, 01:21 PM (IST)
Andrew Strauss said the England cricket team has been in the news for the wrong reasons © Getty Images
By CricketCountry Staff
London: Aug 16, 2012
England captain Andrew Strauss on Thursday hinted it will take a long time for batting star Kevin Pietersen to make a comeback in the side after the text message controversy.
Pietersen, who was dropped from the England squad for the third and final Test against South Africa starting august 16 at Lord’s, had later apologised for sending text messages to his friends in the South Africa side.
“A lot has happened over the last seven days,” Strauss said.
“The England cricket team has been in the news for the wrong reasons.
“We all want to move forward but there are some ongoing issues regarding trust and mutual respect that don’t get dealt with overnight and it’s going to take quite a long time to overcome those.
“My personal point of view is I prefer those issues to be dealt with in private, away from the media without the help of PR companies and press releases,” Strauss was quoted as saying by Sportal.
“Who knows what’s going to happen in the future? It’s a bit of a process that we all have to go through.
“It’s a broader issue than just the text messages. It’s not between me and him, particularly. The text messages sound like I was involved in it but it’s a broader issue,” he added.
“It’s about the team and Kevin and how we interact with each other. I spoke to him over the course of the last week over a number of issues,” Strauss explained.
Pietersen will discover by Saturday if his apology for sending “provocative texts” to South African players has come in time to salvage his hopes of playing in the World Twenty20.
Throughout months of escalating tension with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) hierarchy, Pietersen has always expressed the wish to help England defend the trophy they won in the Caribbean two years ago when he was named man of the tournament.
Saturday is the International Cricket Council deadline for teams to name their final squads for this year’s edition, in Sri Lanka starting in September.
