England's limited overs rise has come in the way of their Test Cricket, says Kevin Pietersen

Pietersen is disappointed with the way England are playing their red ball cricket right now.

Kevin Pietersen (AFP)

Kevin Pietersen has come out and echoed a sentiment that seems to be more apparent than ever. England has made a terrific rise from being a team that looked at one day cricket as a surplus to becoming one of its biggest force since 2015 but it has come in the way of their progress, in Test Cricket. 

England, for a while, has been failing very heavily in overseas conditions and has been largely inconsistent at home too. Its only right that someone who has played the game for them previously has reiterated their problems. 

Pietersen, after England's first series of the summer against Pakistan resulted in 1-1, was quoted saying, “I don’t know which direction they want to go in, England haven’t won a 50-over World Cup, I know that was the message a few years ago to do that and you can see they are driving towards that World Cup in England next summer, at the detriment of Test cricket. And I think it’s sad and frustrating for us as players who have played over 100 Test matches,” 

“The public care a lot more about Test match cricket than they do about the shorter form of the game. The big series will continue to exist, the Ashes will be fine, India v Pakistan, Australia against South Africa.”

Pietersen played in a team under Andrew Strauss that till 2013, "Won a T20 World Cup, we won the Ashes home and away, we beat India in India a few years ago,” and so, he is quite disappointed with the way England's Test match cricket is right now. Obviously, the issue is deeper. 

Looking ahead to England's upcoming one day series against Australia, he said, “They have just got to win, when you win the media go with you, when they lose they hammer you, Australia is always the pantomime villain, no doubt the English are going to go after them, but that’s the nature of the beast, they always go after us when we go there.”

(Inputs from Hindustan Times)

 
 

By Kashish Chadha - 09 Jun, 2018

    Share Via