Kevin Pietersen return would be 'a balancing act' for Surrey
Tuesday 24 March 2015 16:06, UK
Surrey will face a difficult balancing act if Kevin Pietersen does return to the Oval to play county cricket this summer, says Mark Butcher.
The Brown Caps told Sky Sports last week that reports of the 34-year-old re-signing are premature and that discussions are on-going.
However, earlier this month new England and Wales Cricket Board chairman Colin Graves hinted that Pietersen, sacked by the ECB following the 2013/14 Ashes whitewash, could represent his country again if he started to rack up first-class runs.
A potential switch to The Oval gathered more momentum on Tuesday when Pietersen was released from the majority of his IPL contract with Sunrisers Hyderabad, though he could return for the knockout phase should the team qualify.
“Pietersen played at Surrey last season in the T20 – not with any great success, it has to be said – and I suppose that was the natural place for him to look if he was going to come back in and want to play county cricket,” said Butcher.
“It’s slightly odd because Kumar Sangakkara has been signed as an overseas player; they’ve got one or two emerging batsmen there at the Oval and that’s going to mean two places are gone to players who are high-class Test cricketers.
“You always have a balancing act, as any county does, in terms of what you do to develop your players for the future and how much going up from division two of the County Championship is important to you. It’s a difficult one.”
However, former England captain Andrew Strauss said that the publication of Pietersen’s autobiography last autumn could prove a great hindrance to his international hopes.
“You’ve got to give Pietersen some credit,” said Strauss. “He’s put his money where his mouth is and he’s giving himself the chance. He’s saying ‘if you want me to play county cricket, I will do that’.
“But he’s also got to deal with some people that he hasn’t been particularly complimentary about in his book and probably he’ll look back on some of the things he said in his book and be regretting it now.
“The stuff he said about Alastair Cook, Peter Moores and a few of the other players in the team is almost the biggest impediment to him coming back now.”
Surrey de-registered Pietersen last September, after a summer in which he managed to play only Twenty20 cricket.
