By Mike Dawes
Kevin Pietersen brushed off any rifts with his former England colleagues as he returned to Lord’s for the first time since he was sacked after the winter tour of Australia.
Pietersen attended the fourth day of the first Test against Sri Lanka with his pal and chief trumpet-blower Piers Morgan and the pair certainly looked like they were having fun as they posted pictures on Twitter and Instagram of themselves drinking bottles of beer.
The pair were also joined in the hospitality box by Amit Bhatia, co-owner and Vice Chairman of Queens Park Rangers.
The South African-born batsmen, who played in 104 Tests for England and scored 13,500 international runs, is due to publish a tell-all book later this year, which will be ghost-written by Morgan. It is expected to lift the lid on many of the secrets from his acrimonious split with the England camp earlier this year.
Following Pietersen’s England departure, former Daily Mirror Editor Morgan embarked on an ultimately futile campaign to have Pietersen reinstalled back into the England fold with a long-running series of Twitter messages highlighting the batsman’s qualities.
The Surrey batsman had a miserable time of things with the Delhi Daredevils in the IPL this summer but remains one of the most in-demand willow wielders on the world stage.
Pietersen became the fastest batsman to reach both 1,000 and 2,000 runs in One Day International cricket.
Pietersen was in action for Surrey Lions against Essex Eagles in the NatWest T20 Blast earlier this month
He has the second-highest run total from his first 25 Tests, behind only the Australian Sir Donald Bradman, and was the fastest player, in terms of days, to reach 4,000, 5,000 and 7,000 Test runs.
He became only the third English batsman to top the ICC One Day International rankings, doing so in March 2007.
In July 2008, after a century against South Africa, The Times called him ‘the most complete batsman in cricket’ and in 2012 The Guardian called him ‘England’s greatest modern batsman’.
Comments are closed.