England’s cricket coach Andy Flower has said that while he is not tensed about Kevin Pietersen not playing in any county this year, he will need to find a contract with one of the counties by the start of the next season if he wants to continue playing for the international side.
Pietersen has a contract with Hampshire, but the county has refused to select him for any of their games following a few comments that Pietersen made. Pietersen had said that he is looking to shift to a county which is closer to home from next year, because playing for Hampshire was becoming difficult for him. Pietersen lives in Chelsea.
However, given that Pietersen is an international player and barely represents his county, Hampshire have decided not to select him for the one-off game given that it will affect the strong batting line-up that Hampshire already has.
Flower sounded out that missing of the ECB 40 game and a couple of T20 matches were not a cause for any concern. However, according to the ECB contractual obligations, all international players need to have a contract with a county in order to qualify to play for England.
However, Flower also expressed his confidence about Pietersen finding a county to play for before the start of the next season. Flower said, “I was asked a question about whether he would be made available and I said yes he would, although I expected Hampshire to maintain their position that they didn’t want to pick him. If we felt very strongly about it and, for instance, there were first-class games that we wanted him to play leading up to a Test series, we would have sat down and spoken at greater length with Hampshire.”