When the first IPL started in 2008, no cricketer from England showed interest in turning up for the league. Kevin Pietersen was made the captain of the Royal Challengers Bangalore. Although he didn’t play the whole season but had prepared plans and that took RCB to the finals of that season.
Recently, in an interview the former England captain, Michael Vaughan stated that the contract which Pietersen got produced jealousy in the English team. KP was one of the first players from England to improve the idea of playing in the league.
Michael Vaughan stated that there was a lot of jealousy among the team members due to the fact that of the hefty contract which Kevin Pietersen got in the IPL, “I think there was a lot of jealousy. And the players will completely deny it now, but I think there was at the time when Kevin was on a massive contract,” Vaughan stated.
Vaughan further pointed out players like Graeme Swann, Tim Bresnan, James Anderson, Stuart Broad, and Matt Prior who were against the idea of playing in the IPL and teamed up against Pietersen.
“There were all sorts of whispers and rumors of cliques in the team. There was a little band of a few; Swann, Bresnan, Anderson, Broad, and Matt Prior. The whispers were they were on one side, and Kevin was kind of standing on his own on the other side. It was very much Kevin against the team in terms of that one”, Vaughan added.
The former England captain further added that Pietersen’s real intention was to go to IPL and develop his white-ball game. Vaughan stated that Pietersen would discuss this with the players saying that it would only help their white-ball game, but they believed he was going there only for money. Vaughan also said that the prolific batsman was on a huge contract then while the other English cricketers were not getting one.
“It wasn’t anything other than that KP around that time wanted to go to the IPL. He was saying to the team members that he wanted to play because it would, even more, the development of the one-day side and all the one-day players would get the chance to play there and improve their game.
The England players didn’t take part in IPL until 2015 but when Andrew Strauss became the director of cricket in England, he encouraged many players to go and play in the league. This has actually helped and transformed the English ODI side From an average one-day team, England now is the world champions, and also No. 1 ranked ODI side.
