Former England Test batsman and selector James Taylor has recently revealed that former skipper Kevin Pietersen “bullied” and “abused” him in the early stages of his international career.
Taylor made his Test debut at Leeds in the 2012 Test series between England and South Africa that was marred by off-field controversy after Pietersen allegedly texted Proteas players with tips on how to dismiss then England captain Andrew Strauss during the series.
After the tumultuous Test series defeat to South Africa, Strauss retired from international cricket while Pietersen – who was in brilliant form with the bat during that series, was axed from the Test squad.
Recently, Taylor accused Pietersen of “abusing” him and ignoring him in Test XI, while revealing the former teammate “took it on himself not to be a decent bloke” and due to which he didn’t respect him as a person, but he has all respect for him as a cricketer.
As reported by Sky Sports, Taylor told the Giving The Game Away Podcast: “I was 21, making my debut, and there was so much noise. KP had obviously said stuff about me and abused me but when I heard about it… Usually, when somebody’s abusing you or you’re being bullied at school your heart would sink because someone’s being nasty to you, and nobody likes that. But honestly, I didn’t care. Not in an arrogant way, but I’m really proud of myself.”
He added, “If Alastair Cook or Strauss had been going, ‘That little James Taylor, he’s rubbish, he’s no good etc etc’, your heart would sink. But honestly, I had no feelings, nothing inside, because I didn’t respect him at the time because I’d seen how he was and what he’d been saying and how he’d behaved – I didn’t respect him as much as I should.
As a cricketer – legend, brilliant, love watching him. But as a person at the time and what I saw I didn’t respect him that much so it didn’t hurt me as much.”
In his Test debut match in Leeds, Taylor had put on a 147-run stand for the fifth wicket with Pietersen who hit an epic 149 to overlook his 34 against South Africa.
On his gritty and patient innings: Taylor said: “I and KP put on 150 or something like that. That was my first partnership. I like to think my innings got overlooked because (Pietersen) was so unbelievable and played that phenomenal inning which was one of the best innings you’ll see,”
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He added, “Arguably, if he’d played to the situation he wouldn’t have played anything like that innings. It was a phenomenal inning against one of the best attacks and I just blunted it up the other end, tried to get him on strike, but nobody remembers that I was playing the situation.”
While many believed he didn’t play much because of his height (167cm) and even Pietersen wrote in his 2014 autobiography that Taylor was capable of excelling at the Test level, specifically due to his height.
Reacting to the same, the Englishman said: “I will never use it as an excuse, but people say I didn’t play more because people thought I was too small. KP obviously jumped on that bandwagon and said stuff about me because he wanted other people in the team other than me.”
He signed off by saying, “I didn’t know KP. For some reason we never got on, not that I didn’t like him initially because I didn’t know him, he just took it on himself not to be a decent bloke to me or with me around for some reason.”
