Image courtesy of: The Times

“His relationship with English cricket has been like an illicit affair”

Former England captain Andrew Strauss has announced that batsman Kevin Pietersen was axed since he lost the national team’s trust.

One of the episodes in which many of the England players lost their trust in Pietersen was during South Africa’s tour of England in July 2012.

Pietersen was axed from the team after that Test series for allegedly sending derogatory text messages about Strauss and former head coach Andy Flower to the South African players.

“Without trust, the team environment is stillborn,” Strauss wrote in his column for the Sunday Times. “It is for this reason that Kevin Pietersen’s international career had to be brought to an end. The media have been searching for a ‘smoking gun’. Everyone is looking for disciplinary problems, bust-ups and character clashes, but they are looking for the wrong thing. The smoking gun is the total absence of trust.

“What happened in Australia from November onwards, when the heat of the furnace was fixed on the embattled side, was that old grievances came back to the surface. Past history weighed too heavily. Trust still did not exist. His relationship with English cricket has been like an illicit affair. Full of thrills and excitement, but destined to end in tears.”