5 occasions when two star players had a difficult relationship

#4 Andrew Strauss & Kevin Pietersen

Volatile relationship: Strauss and KP

There has always been whispers that Kevin Pietersen can be a hard man to get along with, and it seems Andrew Strauss can vouch for that.

In 2012, the cricketing world was shocked to learn that Pietersen had been dishing out text messages to England’s opponents South Africa in the middle of a Test series, containing information on how to bowl at Strauss and also giving a pretty frank assessment of what he thought of his captain as a person. KP was then dropped for the next Test following this scandal.

Strauss was obviously not happy about this at all, and his relationship with Pietersen doesn’t seem to have improved over time. In 2014, commentating on the annual MCC vs Rest of World fixture in which Pietersen was playing, Strauss was heard to have delivered a brutally honest expletive to describe his opinion on KP when he thought he was off air.

If that wasn’t enough to think that the two still don’t see eye-to-eye, then this surely is; while pushing for selection back into the England Test team – fresh of the back of a triple century at county level - Strauss, the new England Director of Cricket, was the man to tell Pietersen his cards were marked, saying that they can’t “trust” him. Ouch.