Former England batsman Kevin Pietersen has criticised his ex-teammates and managers for allowing a bullying culture to develop in the England dressing room. Pietersen made the startling revelations in an interview with the Daily Telegraph on the launch of his autobiography.
The thing that horrified me the most was when Andy Flower and Andrew Strauss in Bangalore before the one-day internationals said: 'Guys we’ve got to stop this, it’s not right for the team, there are guys that have come to [us] that are intimidated to field the ball.’ And they [the bowlers] had the audacity to stand there and say: 'No, if they’ve fuck up we deserve an apology.’
It’s the most angry I ever got in that dressing room. I thought, I reckon I could hit these guys. Who do you think you are, to ask for an apology from someone who’s trying his heart out, who’s playing for his country, who’s making a mistake?
He put the blame on the coaching staff for allowing the culture of bullying to flourish in the England camp.
It was allowed to develop. It’s in the book. The bowlers were given so much power. They were doing really well. Swanny [Graeme Swann] was winning game after game for us. Broady [Stuart Broad] was contributing. Jimmy [Anderson] was contributing. We always had a third or fourth seamer that was there or thereabouts. But these guys ran the dressing room.
Pietersen also came clean on his infamous text-gate scandal. The South African born batsman explained that his crime was not disagreeing with his South African colleague referring to Andrew Strauss a 'doos'. Pietersen revealed that the incident happened just after he was informed that his teammates were cyberbullying him.
A doos, which is just an idiot. I regret being involved in conversations like that, and I shouldn't have been, but mentally I was totally broken.
Because of what had happened the previous week, where I got told by a senior player that that Twitter account [a Kevin Pietersen parody account] was being run from inside our dressing room. I was completely broken, absolutely finished, mentally shot.
Hat tip: Daily Telegraph
