Andy Flower asks Kevin Pietersen not to regret ODI retirement

England coach Andy Flower has hoped that Kevin Pietersen will have no regrets over his decision to say good bye to the limited-over cricket.

Pietersen recently announced his retirement from 50-over cricket and as a result, would not be available for the shortest version of the game. The aggressive right-hander wants to represent England in the T20s, but England Cricket Board’s rules don’t allow
him to do so.

Pietersen helped England win T20 World Cup last time, scooping the Player of the Tournament award for his wonderful show. He is in superb form these days and his absence will be a huge setback for the side.

Flower described that he and Pietersen met a few times before the belligerent batsman announced his surprise decision, adding that he tried to stop Pietersen from making the move.

"When Kevin told me he wanted to retire from one-day cricket I must have had three or four subsequent meetings with him where I tried to dissuade him from doing so," Flower told BBC’s Test Match Special.

"I think it’s really sad he won’t be playing all three forms of the game. He’s in incredible form — technically, he’s excellent," he added.

The 31-year-old has played in 127 ODIs, scoring over 4000 runs including nine hundreds. With a hectic international schedule, Flower said that England is ready to give Pietersen a break if needed.

"He can rest — it’s not as if KP can’t ever rest — we do rest him, and if you look back at various series that’s what we’ve done. He’s also had significant chunks out with injury; it’s not that he doesn’t get a chance to rest," he said.

He explained, "You can’t choose between one of the limited-overs formats — it’s there in black and white.  Kevin is very clear that he doesn’t want to play one-day cricket anymore, so that makes him unavailable for Twenty20 cricket.

"That’s an ECB policy. The reason for that policy is that 50-over cricket is an integral part of ECB strategy.”

After beating West Indies in the Test series, the Poms, under Alastair Cook’s captaincy, are all set to play three-match One-dayers.

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Posted by Rana Nasir Ghafoor on Jun 13 2012. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry