Pietersen needs to find a new county: England coach
England’s cricket coach, Andy Flower has said that Kevin Pietersen will need to hunt for a new county before the next season begins if he wishes to continue playing for England. According to the coach, the English cricket board’s contracts with the players stipulate that the player needs to be a part of a county if he has to be selected to play for England.
Pietersen has not been formally released by Hampshire from his contract, but he was not selected by the county side in the ECB 40 tournament game last month and will not be chosen for the finals day of the Friends Provident t20 on 14 August. This has been the result of Pietersen’s statements earlier that he will look to play for a county where he does not have to commute too much from his Chelsea home.
This means that http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Hampshire-c789 has refused to select the player, given that they see that there is no future that the player has with the county. There are concerns that this may hit the player in terms of lack of match-practice before the start of the Ashes.
Flower said that he was not too concerned even if the star-player did not get affiliated to any county before the start of the Ashes. However, as a note of caution he did add that the ECB policies mandate all the international cricketers to be a part of a county.
Pietersen’s other issue has been his lack of form, as he has not got too many runs at the Test match level. There was a scratchy innings of 80 against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755, where he was dropped thrice in the process.
Flower said that the players were released to play for their respective counties, and that included Pietersen. However, he also added that he expected Hampshire to continue not selecting him for the FP t20 finals day, just like they hadn’t done on the previous occasion. Flower said that it did not concern them, because had it done so, “we would have sat down and spoken at greater length with Hampshire.”
However, given that it was only a 40-over game earlier and a t20 match, Flower did not consider it worth making an issue about.
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