Indian skipper Mahendra Dhoni was taken aback when he heard the news of retirement of England batsman and former skipper Kevin Pietersen from ODIs and Twenty20.<\/p>\n
The Indian captain said, \u201cI am surprised with his decision. He has been a great cricketer in both the formats of the game. We have all enjoyed his batting and he had a great impact in this year’s IPL as well. He will be sincerely missed in this year\u2019s World Twenty20. It is good that he will carry on playing in Test cricket and I wish him luck in his career,” said Dhoni<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Pietersen, one of England\u2019s finest strokeplayers and among the most popular cricket stars worldwide, announced a shock retirement from limited-overs internationals on Thursday. The move continued the trend of the controversial South African born middle-order batsman\u2019s increasingly frequent run-ins with authorities of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). <\/p>\n
The British media <\/strong>reported that Pietersen wanted to retire from ODIs to \u201cspearhead\u201d England\u2019s T20 squad, a move which was rejected by the ECB. The ECB immediately decreed \u2014 in a move being interpreted as a vindictive one \u2014 that Pietersen would not even be considered for selection to England\u2019s T20 squad. The board announced it had decided centrally contracted players must make themselves available for both limited-overs formats, or neither. <\/p>\n Interestingly, the ruling has not been explicitly acknowledged by the ECB before. The last senior batsman to retire from ODIs was Andrew Strauss, who was already out of the T20 setup. <\/p>\n According to a report in The Times Of India, <\/strong>the decision effectively implies that Pietersen\u2019s international limited-overs career is over. He will now only be considered only for Tests and the ECB promptly announced that the batsman\u2019s central contract was being downgraded. <\/p>\n Hugh Morris, the ECB\u2019s managing director of cricket, expressed his disappointment at the timing of the decision, with England set to embark on the title defence of their World T20 crown in September in Sri Lanka. Pietersen is widely accepted as one of England\u2019s finest T20 batsman and was Man of the Tournament in England\u2019s titlewinning campaign last time around. The turn of events means Pietersen, already a big draw for Delhi Daredevils, could be available for a larger duration of the Indian Premier League (IPL) next year. <\/p>\n The British media tended to blame the ECB for the unanticipated turn of events, with the Independent <\/strong>saying Pietersen,31,didn\u2019t want to retire from T20s: \u201cThe real intrigue lies in the ECB\u2019s decision to retire him from the shorter format against his will. Pietersen-\u2026wanted to spearhead the defence of the (World T20) crown in Sri Lanka later this year but that offer was declined by the board.\u201d <\/p>\n Pietersen, with 127 ODIs and 36 T20caps,hitback-to-backcenturies in his last two ODI games against Pakistan. He scored 4184 runs at 41.84 in ODIs and 1176 runs at 37.93 in T20 Internationals. <\/p>\n Pietersen made it clear he had wanted to play on in T20s. \u201cI am immensely proud of my achievements in the One-day game and still wish to be considered for selection for England in Test cricket. For the record, were the selection criteria not in place, I would have readily played for England in the upcoming ICC World Twenty20,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Indian skipper Mahendra Dhoni was taken aback when he heard the news of retirement of England batsman and former skipper Kevin Pietersen from ODIs and Twenty20. The Indian captain said, \u201cI am surprised with his decision. He has been a great cricketer in both the formats of the game. We have all enjoyed his batting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[2837,4793,622],"class_list":["post-6873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-from-the-newspapers","tag-ecb","tag-keviin-pietersen","tag-mahendra-singh-dhoni"],"yoast_head":"\n