In 2012, Kevin Pietersen was accused of sending text messages to South African players and giving them tips about how to bowl against Andrew Strauss.
Michael Vaughan. (Photo: Twitter/@MichaelVaughan)
Former England skipper Michael Vaughan, who had earlier said that Kevin Pietersen should never have turned up for the national team following the 2012 Text-gate controversy, has now stated that the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) had made Pietersen a scapegoat.
‘They managed players brilliantly for many years but I just feel around that time they just let it drift and they were looking for a scapegoat, and he was the perfect excuse …” Vaughan told foxsports.com.au as quoted by IANS.
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“In 2012 his text was bang out of order. Now, where English cricket were wrong in my opinion was they allowed him back in and he went to India.
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“From (after the tour of India) on you felt like they used him to win a big series and then when it started to go pear-shaped again it was almost as if they had this excuse of why it was and it was always going to be Kevin Pietersen,” he said.
The Ashes-winning skipper, Vaughan, further said that after England’s 0-5 humiliation in the 2013-14 Ashes series, England’s weak player management skill was put open for everyone to see by the way they blamed only Pietersen for such a one-sided loss.
“We were getting briefed in the comm box through messages from the England coach at the time, Andy Flower, that it was all (because of) Kevin,” Vaughan said.
“All I kept hearing was ‘Kevin Pietersen’ and I kept going ‘bull****, can’t be just one person. Manage him. You can’t allow one person to derail 15. And it can’t be that it’s just him’.”
Pietersen was accused of sending text messages to South African players and giving them tips about how to bowl against the then-England captain Andrew Strauss and also about then-coach Andy Flower.
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