Kevin Pietersen is set to return to the England team despite mystery surrounding the contents of the explosive text messages that led to his international exile.
The flamboyant batsman’s England career had looked dead and buried after being accused of betraying his teammates during the home Test series against South Africa.
He reportedly told his former compatriots through text messages how to bowl to former England captain Andrew Strauss in the Headingley Test in August and called his skipper an offensive term.
However Strauss’s retirement and a poor display at the World T20 has allowed the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) to take a pragmatic approach to the situation.
The ECB released a statement on Wednesday morning that an agreement had been reached for the “reintegration” of Pietersen into the team for the rest of this year.
This allows for Pietersen to return in time for next year’s back-to-back Ashes series.
“Upon completion of the program, the England selectors will consider Kevin for future matches,” the statement said.
As for the controversial text messages, the ECB accepted that Pietersen had deleted the offending items.
“Due to the fact that Kevin had not retained the BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) messages, this matter has been successfully concluded through a binding assurance provided to ECB by Kevin,” it said.
“Kevin conceded that the messages exchanged were provocative.
“ECB is satisfied, following receipt of this binding assurance, that to the best of his recollection, Kevin did not convey any messages which were derogatory about the England captain, the England Team Director, the ECB or employees of the ECB.
“Furthermore, there was no tactical information whatsoever provided to members of the South African touring party.”
Not that the 32-year-old’s return to the national team is expected to be smooth.
When asked about Pietersen’s behaviour this week, coach Andy Flower said: “We all have good and bad in us.”
In the fall-out from the damaging text messages, Pietersen was dumped from the final Test of the series against South Africa and left out of England’s ill-fated World T20 title defence in Sri Lanka.
Pietersen, born in Pietermaritzburg in South Africa, has played 88 Tests, 127 one-day matches and 36 Twenty20 internationals for England since his debut in November 2004.
He has scored 7076 Test runs at an average of 49.48 with 21 centuries and 27 half-centuries.
He also has 4184 one-day runs with nine hundreds and was man of the tournament when England won the World Twenty20 in the Caribbean in 2010.
