Having announced his retirement from the game, Alastair Cook is hoping that with time and life moving along at its own rapid pace, he'll eventually be able to heal all the problems that he has had with Kevin Pietersen. 

Pietersen, who scored 8, 181 runs at 47.28 across 104 Tests for England, was always an outsider who never really got the kind of acceptance that South Africa born deserved. Having had issues with several administrators, teammates and coaches, the flamboyant batsman was controversially dropped from the side at the end of infamous Ashes tour in 2013-14. 

The sacking came under the captaincy of Cook, who it is believed had major input and influence in the widely criticised decision. Once teammates, the duo has had no talks with each other for the last four years. 

Now though, with Cook playing his last game for England at The Oval against India, he has expressed wish to resolve all issues with Pietersen. 

"I haven't spoken to him since that day but I think time is a great healer," Cook was quoted telling BBC Radio's Test Match Special, "We spent a lot of time together and created some amazing memories, The thing is, we never fell out. Since then, the internet has fallen out for us."

"I was involved in the decision at first but the England captain doesn't have the final say on hiring and firing, I agreed with it, but I said, 'Why don't we give him some time off, we can go away and maybe KP can come back later on?'. (Strauss's predecessor) Paul Downton wanted clarity, a clean break -- because people would always be asking when is he (Pietersen) coming back." he added, "The fallout was pretty nasty and I don't think the ECB handled it well or appreciated how social media worked very well then. It was the toughest time of my career, and there's no doubt it affected my batting."

Cook concluded by saying, "I would refute anyone saying that I was the one that chucked him down the stairs but I was involved in the decision and I believed it was right at that time. Looking back, I can safely say all the decisions I made were done for the best of the England cricket team at that time." 

"On that one, there were a lot of other people, way above my head, also involved in it. I felt like I was being left alone as the captain."

(Inputs from Cricket.com.au)