Dominic Cork calls Kevin Pietersen ‘a bad egg’ and defends ECB decision

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/may/15/dominic-cork-kevin-pietersen-bad-egg

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Kevin Pietersen deserves no sympathy because he is a “bad egg”, his former Hampshire captain Dominic Cork has claimed.

Cork has reacted with frustration to Pietersen’s fortunes continuing to dominate England’s agenda at the start of an Ashes summer. That was the case on Friday following a statement from England and Wales Cricket Board chairman Colin Graves, who stressed he did not promise Pietersen a route back into the Test team before Andrew Strauss closed the door on him again.

The record-breaking batsman had accused the ECB of being “incredibly deceitful” towards him, and Graves has been at pains to defend his integrity.

Cork has lost patience with the situation, the new ECB director Strauss having ruled out a welcome back for Pietersen this summer – even after he made a maiden triple-century for Surrey.

Cork told Sky Sports 2: “This story ... is annoying me, because I think it should be put to bed now. We have to just remember why [this decision has been made]. It’s all right us saying we all feel sorry for him now, because he’s got 300 against Leicester – at The Oval, one of the best batting tracks, against a side that’s never won in two years.”

Cork acknowledged that different personalities must be accommodated in a team environment, but insisted Pietersen had pushed the boundaries too far.

“I honestly believe that not everybody has to be the same – you can’t always get on in teams,” he said. “But there’s a bad egg in the side – and let’s be blatantly honest, Kevin Pietersen is a bad egg. [He’s] a great player, but a bad egg.”

The former England seamer cited as evidence a number of controversies of the South Africa-born batsman Pietersen’s brilliant but chequered career. Cork also took issue with the contents of Pietersen’s autobiography – in which Alastair Cook, Andy Flower and team-mates Jimmy Anderson and Matt Prior were criticised.

“You can’t just publish a book, and slaughter everybody in the side, and [then] they say ‘Oh yes, come back in, yes, yes,’” he said.

“Or [there’s] ‘Captain Weasel’, getting these so-called celebrity friends to be tweeting things on his behalf ... calling Alastair Cook that – or ‘the Big Cheese’, Matt Prior.

“This is a catalogue that has gone on throughout Kevin’s life. [He’s] a great player. I’d pay money to watch this guy. I played against him, and he smashed me everywhere and probably would do any day of the week.

“Yes, he’s been brilliant. Yes, we’ll all miss him – but if we worked in an office and we’d done what he’d done, we wouldn’t have a job.

“The decision has been made. Credit to Andrew Strauss, well done.”