Former England captain Kevin Pietersen’s relationship with his teammates and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is well known to everyone – which had even led to his international career to end prematurely despite bringing a lot of laurels for the Three Lions.
Even recently former England captain-turned-commentator Michael Vaughan blamed the ECB for not handling Pietersen properly, resulting in his career ended in a dishearteningly controversial manner because of the 'textgate' scandal that rocked England cricket in 2012.
Vaughan also claimed that England took advantage of Pietersen’s enigmatic character that he used to be and even believes that he was used as a scapegoat whenever things went wrong
About the scandal, Vaughan revealed that Pietersen's messages were 'out of order', while claiming England used one of their X-factor players, who won matches single-handedly for the team to win the India series but then made him the scapegoat when things went wrong in Ashes in Australia.
Vaughan told foxsports.com.au, “They managed players brilliantly for many years but I just feel around that time they just let it drift and they were looking for a scapegoat, and he was the perfect excuse…. In 2012 his text was bang out of order. Now, where English cricket were wrong in my opinion was they allowed him back in and he went to India.”
The cricket pundit further added, “From (after the tour of India) on you felt like they used him to win a big series and then when it started to go pear-shaped again it was almost as if they had this excuse of why it was and it was always going to be Kevin Pietersen.”
Meanwhile, Vaughan also revealed an incident after the fateful Ashes series of 2013-14 when England put the entire blame on Pietersen after their 0-5 humiliation.
Saying he just couldn't believe how one player could be responsible for such a one-sided loss, Vaughan added: “We were getting briefed in the comm box through messages from the England coach at the time, Andy Flower, that it was all (because of) Kevin.”
He signed off by saying, “All I kept hearing was 'Kevin Pietersen' and I kept going 'bull****, can't be just one person. Manage him. You can't allow one person to derail 15. And it can't be that it's just him'.”
(With Foxsports Inputs)
