“That absolutely ruined me”: When Kevin Pietersen was shattered learning about involvement of England players behind the ‘@KPGenius’ Twitter parody account

Kevin Pietersen and his Twitter parody account had everything in them to heat up the English dressing room atmosphere back then.

England’s one of the most decorated cricketers- Kevin Pietersen had a career marred with controversies aplenty. It all started with his fallout with then coach Peter Moores, while he was captain of the England national side.

It all went haywire for the right-handed batter, went he was dropped from the team in 2012, after his private texts with South African players during England’s tour of the rainbow nation surfaced. The texts allegedly contained his private conversation with then England skipper Andrew Strauss.

It was during this period of his career, that Pietersen also pressed charges against some of his fellow England players over their involvement with a certain @KPGenius parody Twitter account, which, as per Pietersen, not only mocked him, but also referenced private conversations between him, James Anderson, and Graeme Swann openly on the micro-blogging site.

Kevin Pietersen and his Twitter parody account

Pietersen wanted a thorough investigation to be conducted by the ECB, after Alec Steward- England’s most- capped Test cricketer, claimed he was told by Richard Bailey- the created of the aforementioned parody account, that the trio of England cricketers- James Anderson, Tim Bresnan, and Graeme Swann had passwords to the ‘@KPGenius’ account.

As per Steward, it was Bailey who had himself introduced himself as the account’s author during the Test against South Africa at the Oval in 2012 and revealed Swann, Broad and Bresnan had access to it.

“It didn’t sit comfortably with me as an ex-England cricketer and an England fan that this type of thing might be going on,” Stewart stated (in 2014).

“Not because I wanted them to get fined or anything – I’ve huge admiration for all three – but it didn’t sit comfortably with me if factually correct. I had a conversation with then ECB managing director Hugh Morris during the Oval Test match and then with England coach Andy Flower at a later date. It was then down to the ECB to investigate things if they wanted to or they could ignore it. After that I don’t know what happened, Steward further added.

The EBC did carry out the investigation, but cleared the England players’ alleged involvement with the tweets, and stated that Bailey himself was involved in all of it. ECB in fact, also issued a press release stressing the players and the account owner denied they had been involved in @KPGenius account.

Pietersen later, accused the ECB of “burying” the issue of the Twitter account despite being aware of “how it made me feel”, adding that he was “ruined” after he was told that some of his team-mates might be behind the account.