THE BITTER END

STRAUSS: I just don’t trust you PIETERSEN: I was deceived by England

KEVIN PIETERSEN last night claimed he had been deceived by England cricket chiefs after Andrew Strauss told him a lack of trust had wrecked his comeback hopes.

On the day Pietersen finished with an unbeaten 355 for Surrey against Leicestershire at The Oval, Strauss — formally unveiled at Lord’s as the new director of England cricket — insisted: ‘We’re in a position now where there’s a massive trust issue between him and the ECB.’ Strauss, who with chief executive Tom Harrison met Pietersen on Monday night at a London hotel, said: ‘I told him we had no plans for him to play for England this summer, and could make no guarantees going forward.

‘No team environment can be sustained with a lack of trust. It’s a twoway process. I’m not apportioning

any blame.’ Pietersen reacted with fury to the decision, telling the Daily

Telegraph: ‘I am absolutely devastated that it looks like my hopes of an England recall have been brought to a close, especially given everything that has been said and asked of me. They have used the word trust to justify not selecting me, well, trust is a two-way thing.

‘I just find it incredibly deceitful what has happened to me and am frankly finding it difficult to understand right now. I have done everything I have been asked. I keep asking myself, what more could I do? ‘I have given up my IPL contract, at great expense, to play in county cricket. Surrey did not have any funds free to pay me so I said I would play for nothing, just a donation to charity, and it is horrendous to feel I have been led down the garden path. They knew all along this was a dead end for me.

‘I feel deeply misled. Tom has tried to say that Colin Graves (the new ECB chief) was misrepresented by the media when he said there was a way back.

‘Was I lied to by the chairman? Only he can answer that. Tom Harrison and Andrew Strauss have said today that all three of them are united in this decision, so I don’t know what to think.

‘I asked (them in our meeting): “Who doesn’t trust me? You have a new chairman, a new CEO, we have spent the last 10 minutes sorting out our differences like adults. Let’s go through the batting order”. I rattled off names. He could not give me any names. He said it is a broader thing and not just the players.

‘I accepted that Alastair Cook and I need to sort a few things out. But I thought we could man- age that and Strauss is in a position to facilitate it happening.’

Whatever the ‘trust issue’ was, it did not stop Strauss offering Pietersen a role as an adviser to England’s one-day team — an offer he dismissed. Strauss also said he hoped the two sides could patch up their differences. That seems impossible now.

The decision to freeze out Pietersen brought a flood of criticism for Strauss from many in the game.

Harrison also apologised for how coach Peter Moores learned of his sacking on Friday in Dublin after it had already been reported.

‘That was a very difficult day and a bad day for the ECB,’ said Harrison. ‘Peter was an outstanding coach. He’d been under enormous pressure for a long time and he didn’t deserve what happened to him. There has been an apology to Peter.’

Strauss explained that Moores’s tactical naivety had been ‘exposed’ at the World Cup, and claimed: ‘Every game was a referendum on whether the coach should stay or go. That wasn’t fair on him or the players.’

Strauss also backed his former opening partner Cook to captain the Test side until the end of the summer.

Until now, Cook had felt like the last man standing among the powerbrokers who had opposed Pietersen’s return, but Strauss insisted: ‘English cricket needs stability at the moment, and he can provide that.’

In an unexpected move, Strauss said Eoin Morgan would be staying on as one-day captain, despite England’s dismal World Cup. Morgan was also named as England’s Twenty20 captain, replacing Stuart Broad.

For Joe Root — ‘a very strong voice in the dressing-room and a natural leader’, according to Strauss — there was the fillip of the vice-captaincy, previously filled by Ian Bell.