Kevin Pietersen returns as England mentor for white-ball team
Kevin Pietersen is back in England colours. Not at the crease this time, but in the dressing room – and Joe Root insists the environment he walks into bears little resemblance to the one that cast him out a decade ago.
The former superstar batter has been appointed as a mentor to England’s white-ball side in the build-up to the 2027 World Cup in South Africa, the country of his birth. Root, now Test captain again and the only current player to have shared an England dressing room with Pietersen, knows exactly how far the landscape has shifted since the acrimonious split of 2014.
“The world is a very different place to what it was in 2014, and the England team is in a very different place to that as well,” Root told BBC Sport, drawing a clear line between the past and the present.
Pietersen returns to a changed England
Pietersen’s return comes with all the weight of his history. One of England’s greatest batters, he piled up 13,779 international runs – a tally bettered only by Root and Alastair Cook – while redefining what was possible with a bat in hand. His audacious strokeplay and relentless intent looked futuristic at the time; now they are the template for modern white-ball cricket.
For many of the current squad, Pietersen was a poster on the wall before he became a presence in the room.
“A lot of the guys will have watched him and got into the game because of him,” Root said. “It will be great for those guys to have the opportunity to work alongside him.”
Yet Pietersen’s story with England has never been just about runs and reverse sweeps. He was dropped in 2012 amid allegations he sent derogatory text messages about then-captain Andrew Strauss to members of the South Africa team. He was later brought back under Cook, only for England’s disastrous 5-0 Ashes tour in 2013-14 to end his international career. In 2015, Strauss, by then director of cricket, ruled out a recall, citing a “trust issue.”
That is the baggage Pietersen carries into his new role. Root, who played 12 Tests and nine ODIs alongside him, is under no illusions about the personality involved.
“He’s not afraid to speak his mind,” Root said. “That’s him as a person. When you get someone involved you want them to be themselves and you want them to come into an environment for a reason.”
The implication is clear: this England setup believes it can absorb strong voices without fracturing.
“With his experience and knowledge about the game, and all that he can offer, I think he’s going to be great,” Root added. “You’re looking at so many hypothetical things that could go wrong, when there are so many amazing things he will bring to that environment.”
Pietersen will link up with Brendon McCullum’s staff for the white-ball series against Sri Lanka next week. It is a neat symmetry: two men who helped drag batting into a new era now sharing a dressing room as mentors rather than marauders.
Root knows first-hand what that mentorship can look like.
“He was always someone who gave me a huge amount, to be honest,” said Root, who debuted for England as a 21-year-old in 2012. “He didn’t need to offer as much as he did to me, but he would sit there and work tirelessly, making sure I felt comfortable with my own game. He listened to all my questions and helped as much as he could. As a senior player, he was outstanding.”
Root’s England chase a clean sweep
While Pietersen steps into a new role, Root is back in a familiar one. He will lead England in the third and final Test against Pakistan at Edgbaston on Wednesday, with the hosts hunting a 3-0 clean sweep in his first series since returning as captain.
As at Lord’s and in the opening Test, Root refused to reveal his XI before the toss, and England are expected to remain unchanged after two commanding wins. A whitewash would send a strong message at the start of his second stint in charge – and finally address a nagging trend.
Under Ben Stokes, England became renowned for starting series with a bang and finishing with a whimper. They have lost the final Test in each of their past six multi-match series. Root did not try to dress that up.
Only victory in Birmingham, he admitted, changes that narrative.
What he would not accept was any attempt to elevate his early success at Stokes’ expense.
“We wouldn’t have been able to play these last two games without all of the work those two did,” Root said of Stokes and former Test coach McCullum. “I think it’s undervalued, the impact what those two guys had on English cricket.”
“You look at where we were and how we played our cricket, you look at how we’ve been able to perform in the last two games, a lot of that is down to the hard work and the way they changed the mentality within English cricket and this team.
“I’m not going to sit here and have comparisons thrown against those two, I don’t think that’s fair whatsoever. They deserve a lot of credit for the last two performances.”
The message is pointed: this is evolution, not a coup.
Ticket prices and who the game is for
Away from selection and strategy, another debate has been simmering in the background. Since England wrapped up the second Test at Lord’s, attention has turned to ticket prices for next summer’s home Ashes.
At Edgbaston, the Hollies Stand – famous for its carnival atmosphere – will cost £165 a seat for the Ashes, up from £125 for the 2023 series against Australia. It is a jump that has raised questions about who can realistically afford to watch Test cricket live.
Root chose his words carefully.
“I don’t know what it takes to run a county or run a venue, I don’t know what goes into that,” he said. “From a playing point of view and as a captain, you want the grounds to be full, and you want them to be full of every demographic of person.
“You want the game to feel like it is for everyone, that they can come to support you and enjoy that. I don’t really know what more to say on it, to be honest. It would be great to see this place full and thriving, and for everyone to have the opportunity to come to watch Test cricket.”
It is a quiet but pointed reminder: the spectacle on the field only matters if people can get through the turnstiles to see it.
Now England head into Edgbaston with a chance to sweep Pakistan, with Root back at the helm, Pietersen on his way into the white-ball inner circle, and the stands under scrutiny as much as the slip cordon. The team may be “very different” to the one that imploded in 2014 – the next few years will show just how different English cricket really wants to be.
