In a recent episode of the Club Prairie Fire podcast, Michael Vaughan, who captained Andrew Strauss 78 times including his white-ball debuts, reckoned Kevin Pietersen didn’t need to text tips to South African mates with regard to dismissing the home team’s captain during their tour of England 11 years ago.
Advertisement
Strauss, who led England to a 0-2 loss in a three-match series to lose the No. 1 team ranking in the format, had scored all of 107 runs at an average of 17.83 across six innings. Therefore, Vaughan believes that Pietersen could’ve avoided a controversy as an out-of-form Strauss would’ve been dismissed even while facing a “straight ball”.
“It wasn’t that hard. He [Kevin Pietersen] probably could’ve said, ‘Just bowl straight’. He [Andrew Strauss] was playing fuc**ng sh*t at the time [laughs],” Vaughan said in the podcast.
Despite the above mentioned mockery-laden remark from Vaughan, Strauss did have a decorated Test career scoring 7,037 runs including 21 centuries. Playing his 100th Test at the Lord’s, Strauss couldn’t add another match to a 231-match international career after the South Africa series.
Having averaged 33.19 with the help of a couple of centuries across 21 innings in the last year of his Test career, Strauss had averaged 17.71 in his last four Tests.
Kevin Pietersen Apologized To Andrew Strauss Despite “Banter With Mates”
Not known to be a timid person on and off the field, Kevin Pietersen always did justice to the “rebel” tag. Having said that, he had eventually apologized to Strauss for sending text messages to opponents.
Pietersen, who would usually walk over to his opponents after a match or a day’s play, didn’t mind engaging in banter with them. Providing details to former England captain Nasser Hussain on ‘KP: Story of a Genius’, a Sky Originals documentary, he had expressed how he felt the “Textgate” scandal was always part of a “banter with mates” and nothing more.
In the same documentary, Strauss had considered Pietersen’s behaviour as unacceptable. While Pietersen was annoyed with Strauss’ restrictions around not meeting opponent outside of the playing field, Strauss disclosed it to have never been the case. Vaughan, in particular, didn’t think at the time that Pietersen should’ve played another match for England post the controversy.
