Andrew Strauss Opens Up On Poor Handling Of Kevin Pietersen

Former England captain Andrew Strauss admitted he handled Kevin Pietersen poorly. There were things going down between them. Strauss believes after some of the players retired from the England team he should have spent more time with Pietersen and known him better.

Pietersen had allegedly insulted Strauss over text messages with his South African counterparts. He was dropped from the team in 2012.

Did not do enough work with KP, feels Andrew Strauss

Strauss, in a Sky Podcast, spoke in depth about his foul relationship with Pietersen. He confessed that he should have left KP be KP. It could have brought out the best from him in the coming days.

“I probably didn’t do enough work with KP,” Strauss told a Sky Sports podcast.

“There came a time when some of the people he was close with in the team retired or got dropped. There was an opportunity there, not necessarily to bring him in, but spend a lot more time with him and make sure his views were valued and considered.

“I think instead I just let KP be KP. In retrospect that was a mistake and might have sowed the seeds for what was to come down the track.”

Andrew Strauss On KP itching to play IPL

Strauss was not in favour of Pietersen playing IPL. He thought, although, it is a big money tournament youngsters cannot miss out on playing Test match.

“I always had sympathy with KP over the IPL,” added Strauss. “I understood what a big event it was with all the best players playing there together and huge amounts of money on the table as well.

“Long term my view was that we had to find a window for the IPL. I told the ECB we couldn’t compete against each other as it is going to create massive issues within our team.

“But I thought it was incredibly dangerous to allow players to miss Test cricket to play in the IPL. The message you’d be sending and the precedent you’d be setting is that the IPL is more important than Test cricket.

“I was saying to KP at the time, ‘listen, mate, this is the situation. You can’t opt in or out of international cricket. You’ve got obligations to England and hopefully there are gaps where you can play in the IPL as well’.

“When I took over as director of cricket, I looked at the calendar and whether we could shift so that our players could play in the IPL.”