"ECB banned me from T20s too" - Kevin Pietersen takes a dig at ECB following Ben Stokes' ODI retirement
Former England star Kevin Pietersen took a cheeky dig at the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) on Tuesday after they accepted Ben Stokes' decision to retire from ODI cricket.
The England Test captain earlier revealed in his post on social media that playing in all three formats was not 'sustainable' for him as he failed to give his hundred percent with both the bat and the ball.
The 31-year-old further spoke of the drawbacks of poor scheduling and the toll it takes on players' physical and mental well-being.
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Pietersen took to Twitter to claim that he faced a similar situation in 2012, when he asked the board to support him in his decision to opt out of ODIs. Instead of assessing his workload, the ECB banned Pietersen from even T20Is.
Here's what the 42-year-old tweeted:
"I once said the schedule was horrendous and I couldn’t cope, so I retired from ODI cricket & the ECB banned me from T20s too………….🤣"
I once said the schedule was horrendous and I couldn’t cope, so I retired from ODI cricket & the ECB banned me from T20s too………….🤣
Kevin Pietersen was probably the first player to speak about poor scheduling a decade ago
Kevin Pietersen and the ECB had their controversies, and one of them was when the board banned the star batter from the T20 format. Arguably England's best batter in their victorious 2010 T20 World Cup campaign didn't even get an opportunity to defend the crown two years later.
Here's what Kevin Pietersen said in a press release back in June 2012:
"After a great deal of thought and deliberation, I am announcing my retirement from international one-day cricket. With the intensity of the international schedule and the increasing demands on my body approaching 32, I think it is the right time to step aside and let the next generation of players come through."
Stokes' ODI retirement has already raised awareness among the cricketing fraternity about how playing so many games in such a short window affects the players. It won't be a surprise if more players come forward in the near future and retire from one format to concentrate on the other two.