Star Kevin Pietersen questioned England’s approach to give more importance to One-day International cricket in spite of the traditional format. England has achieved great heights in the limited-overs form, whereas, they have shown a dip in form of red ball cricket.
Consequently, Pietersen believes that England has done this to achieve success in the upcoming 2019 World Cup.
The country has played some fearless cricket in the 50-over format. Thus, they have also reaped the rich rewards. However, they had gone on to lose the Ashes 4-0.
Furthermore, the recent Test series against Pakistan also ended in a stalemate.
In fact, some of England players like Alex Hales have concentrated their whole energy on the white-ball cricket.
“I don’t know which direction they want to go in. England haven’t won a 50-over World Cup, I know that was the message a few years ago to do that and you can see they are driving towards that World Cup in England next summer, at the detriment of Test cricket. And I think it’s sad and frustrating for us as players who have played over 100 Test matches,” Pietersen said as quoted by AFP.
Pietersen went on to add that the big Test series will continue to exist. The major Test series is a paradigm to the purest form of the game.
Also, former England batsman added that the public care a lot about the longest form.
“The public care a lot more about Test match cricket than they do about the shorter form of the game. The big series will continue to exist, the Ashes will be fine, India v Pakistan, Australia against South Africa.”
Meanwhile, Pietersen also added Australia needs to win against the odds. Australian cricket is under the hammer after the ball-tampering scandal which surfaced during the penultimate Test in Cape Town
“They have just got to win when you win the media go with you when they lose they hammer you,” he explained. “Australia is always the pantomime villain, no doubt the English are going to go after them, but that’s the nature of the beast, they always go after us when we go there.”
Kevin Pietersen has once again hit the nail on the coffin with his analysis. The former England skipper holds back no punches in his armoury.
