Johannesburg: Out-of-favour England batsman Kevin Pietersen is reportedly not considering playing for his birth country South Africa. This comes after former England fast bowler Darren Gough observed earlier that the maverick batsman would be tempted to represent his country of birth considering the treatment meted out to him by the England cricket board. As per the International Cricket Council rules, a player must wait four years to re-qualify for another side if he has represented a Test-playing country, Sport24 reported.
Last year, Pietersen’s hopes of earning an England recall suffered a heavy blow when Andrew Strauss, the England and Wales Cricket Board’s director, told the batsman that he would not be considered for an international recall. Strauss had cited a ‘massive trust issue’ between him and the sacked batsman as the reason behind the decision to not select him for the 2015 Ashes series, which England won by 3-2.
Pietersen, a veteran of 104 Tests and 136 one-day caps for England, has been out of the national squad since his central contract was cancelled by the ECB following the team’s Ashes washout by Australia in 2014. He displayed a rich vein of form in the recent Ram Slam T20 in South Africa and Australia’s Big Bash League and is set to play in the upcoming Indian Premier League.
