KP: The AutobiographyOctober 6, 2014

KP reveals how career ended

ANDREW MCGLASHAN

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Pietersen attacks Flower, Prior

Paul Downton viewed Kevin Pietersen's shot in Melbourne as reckless

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Kevin Pietersen's final days as an England player

were dominated by hotel-room meetings, dismissive
glances, brooding resentment and mistrust and
finally open-mouth shock as he listened to the
explanations for his sacking given to him by the ECB
hierarchy.
The final straw in his fractured relationship
with Andy Flower came on the eve of the final
Ashes Test in Sydney when Flower summoned
Pietersen to his room to ask about the player's
rubbishing of him during an outspoken team
meeting which had been convened, without the
support staff, following the defeat in Melbourne.

In his autobiography which is published by Sphere

on Thursday, Pietersen says that he was made out to
be the major back-stabber during the Melbourne
meeting and writes that it was Matt Prior, another
with who the relationship had fallen apart, who said
"f**k Flower this is not his team" and that he was
just reiterating condemnation of Flower's intense
approach he had been making for two years.
Pietersen was also angered by the fact Prior, whose
assertive role as vice captain often compensated for
Alastair Cook's reticence as captain, was so central
to the meeting despite being dropped.
He calls the decision to put the emphasis on fitness
levels between the fourth and fifth Test "insane" and
"a move right out of the Flower playbook" and
explains how he pulled Cook aside to tell him he was
wrong. "We needed to be reminded that, somewhere
lost in the middle of the all the shit, we were a
decent team with some decent cricketers."
Pietersen admits that during that meeting he "got
into a huge argument" with Flower who told
Pietersen "you really disappoint me." He slams
Flower's talk of building a legacy which had been
used in the build-up to the tour. "He had thought
that by hinting that he was finished his team would
say, oh noInstead guys just thought, hey, this
f****r is bailing out and he needs us to make him
look good."
As Pietersen was leaving the room, he tells that
Flower said to him that he hoped he scored some

runs in the Test. "That lodged in my headActually

I get what you are saying. I get the veiled threat, so
why don't you just f**k off, Flower?"
Shortly after the Sydney Test finished, inside three
days, the rumours of Pietersen's future started
circulating. "From the moment I left Flower's room
in Sydney, I had a sense that the inner circle were
telling each other that they had to find some way to
get rid of me."
A little over a month later, in another hotel room,
this time across the road from Lord's, he had his
international career ended by Paul Downton, the
new managing director of England cricket, who as
Pietersen discovered on a Google search "was a
lower-order middle-order batsman with a Test
average of 20."
Downton explained his decision by saying he had
never seen anyone so "disengaged" from the team as
he witnessed over the three days of the Sydney Test.
In his autobiography, Pietersen writes that he felt
was a pre-ordained decision to end his career.
"He's been forced to admit there was no smoking
gun. The only charge seems to be that Paul
Downton, watching his very first Test in his brandnew job, opted to study me exclusively and
concluded that I looked 'disengaged'I would love
to know how any cricketer facing Aussie bowlers on
their home turf could look 'disinterested'.

"Or does it have nothing to do with my batting? Is

Downton claiming that he was watching me when I
was in the outfield? Why would he do that, if not in
order to gather evidence to strengthen a case that
somebody must have already made to him?"
He questioned why Flower, with whom Pietersen's
relationship had reached rock-bottom, was not
asked "what the hell was going on". "They knew the
truthThey knew that a clique choked our team,
and that Andy Flower let that clique grow like a bad
weed."
Pietersen claims the ECB needed a scapegoat who
was "big, boisterous and annoyingsomebody who
left colourful footprints on the pristine white
carpets."
Pietersen reveals he had two meetings with
Downton - one at Lord's before the ECB hired a
suite to deliver their final judgement. "I am glad
that we are doing this in a hotel," he writes of his
thoughts on the day. "As I walked past all the desks
in the ECB offices for my first meeting with
Downton a few days ago, I felt like the school
troublemaker on his way to the headmaster's office."
That first meeting had left Pietersen shocked at
Downton's response to his self-assessment of his
performance in the Ashes. "Look, I said, I didn't bat
well as I could. I did okay," Pietersen recalls was his
comment in the meeting to which he says "Downton
said he had seen the way I had played - I hadn't

battled well. Careless. Really? I looked at him, my

mouth hanging open."
Pietersen went onto ask Downton if he had watched
the Melbourne Test, where he scored 71 in the first
innings, but Downton said he had been flying. "No,
he went on, but he saw the way I got out. Reckless. I
just said, wow."
The first conversation with Downton finished with
Pietersen being asked what his ambitions for the
future were and he picked out the 10,000-run target
which has been his oft-stated aim. Pietersen says the
response from Downton was "I would have
preferred you to have said, I would like to help
England win matches."
When Pietersen found out the second meeting
would also include James Whitaker, the national
selector, and Cook he was not optimistic. "I know,
though, that while Cooky is a nice man, he is also a
company man. A safe pair of hands; he won't rock
the boat."
Downton then told Pietersen of the decision that
"you are not going to be part of the process going
forward" to which he asked "Right. So you are
sacking me?" before an exchange followed where
neither Whitaker or Downton appeared to want to
confirm the finality of the news. "Silence," Pietersen
writes, "Whitaker nodding, Cook still looking at
something really fascinating on his shoe."

Pietersen left and met Adam Wheatley, his agent, in

the lobby and went to visit his lawyer. "We began
making arrangements for severance. It was over.
That was all I could think. Over."
Pietersen admits he made some mistakes and
remarkably still holds out hope of a comeback. "I
didn't always tread wisely. I was often nave and
sometimes stupid. I was no villain, though.
"Cricket is politics. Bad politics. Things change
overnight. I believe that the governing body of
English cricket could change; I believe it should
change. I am happy for now, but I would be happy
to come back. Anything can happen in cricket."
Andrew McGlashan is a senior assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo
ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

Comments have now been closed for this article

LATEST
ALL 49
OLDEST
JG2704 ON OCTOBER 8, 2014, 20:37 GMT

@bundybear55 on (October 6, 2014, 22:55 GMT) It would indeed be

interesting to see what would have happened if KP had still been playing
under Vaughan all these years. Vaughan was an attacking captain and
maybe KP could have flourished even more under Vaughan and he may have
kept his head off field. I wonder if the reason why KP has been more inhibited
is because he has tried to modify his game to suit others? It hasn't worked

JG2704 ON OCTOBER 8, 2014, 20:36 GMT

@ JaranNirsi on (October 6, 2014, 19:49 GMT) Just a couple of points here. He

didn't beat the interested rest hands down in Oz. He was better than most
but there were 5 or 6 bats