"Kevin vs The Team": Kevin Pietersen's IPL Contract Sparked Jealousy In Team: Michael Vaughan

Kevin Pietersen was the star of England. But he was on the fallout for sometime with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), with the Indian Premier League (IPL), making it worse for him. Former England Test captain Andrew Strauss was never in favour of the one of the most-sought after star during those times Kevin Pietersen itching to play in the lucrative tournament. The problems continued to grow once he bagged a contract from Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in 2009.

In an interview with Fox Sports, former England captain Michael Vaughan described the way, the English players behaved after Pietersen was set to ply his trade in the IPL. He also thought, it looked like the entire team was against the star player.

Kevin Pietersen was on a massive contract, there was a lot of jealousy: Michael Vaughan

Kevin Pietersen was bought for 1.55 million dollars by the Bangalore outfit in 2009. And subsequently, there was a lot of jealousy in the national camp due his massive contract, Vaughan said. There were whispers between players like Graeme Swann, Tim Bresnan, James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Matt Prior regarding the contract.

“I think there was a lot of jealousy. And the players will completely deny it now but I think there was at the time when Kevin was on a massive contract. There were all sorts of whispers and rumours of cliques in the team. There was a little band of a few; Graeme Swann, Tim Bresnan, (James) Anderson, (Stuart) Broad and Matt Prior. The whispers were they were on one side and Kevin was kind of standing on his own on the other side,” Michael Vaughan said.

Pietesen clearly wanted to play in the tournament to improve his game further but his teammates deemed it as he wanted to play for the big contract. It was very much Kevin against the team in terms of that one, Vaughan said.

“It wasn’t anything other than that Kev around that time wanted to go to the IPL. That’s how it all started to blow up and that’s when those factions came into play,” Vaughan said.

“He was saying to the team he wanted to play because it would further the development of the one-day team and all the one-day players would get the chance to play there and improve their game. They deemed that he just wanted to go for the money. He was on a big contract while not many of the other players were even getting sniffed at,” he added.

Pietesen did not had a favourable outing with RCB in 2009. He managed to score only 93 runs from six matches. His contract, however, then made him the joint-costliest buy along with fellow all-rounder Andrew Flintoff.