5 biggest controversies in English cricket

#3 Kevin Pietersen’s Textgate

Kevin Pietersen at a press conference

He is among the greatest batsmen to have ever played for England but Kevin Pietersen is perhaps one of the most polarising figures in English cricket’s recent history. Throughout his career, he had had run-ins with captains, coaches and figures of authority, but during the home series against South Africa back in 2012, it all boiled over into one of the most unsavoury controversies to have hit English cricket.

His relationship with the powers that be in English cricket was already strained since he was not able to participate in the lucrative IPL and following the 2nd Test of the drawn Test at Leeds, it emerged that he had exchanged text messages with the South Africans during the game.

Additionally, those were not harmless messages but those disparaging the captain Andrew Strauss. Apparently, Pietersen called Strauss a ‘doos’, which in Afrikaans is a well-known slang referring to a vital organ of a human body. Pietersen was eventually dropped from the team for the 3rd Test, despite having scored an imperious 149 in the 2nd Test.