LONDON: "Just pick your best available players and let's stop over complicating sport.... It's a game of Cricket .. Nothing more Nothing less," tweeted Michael Vaughan as Kevin Pietersen's international career was effectively ended for good.
Vaughan, the star batsman's first England Test captain a decade ago, posted his comment on a day in which the phrase "lack of trust" was deployed so often to justify Pietersen's ongoing exile it was as if therapists from the hospital next door had taken control of Lord's.
Pietersen, 34, England's leading all-time run-scorer across all formats, was ditched last year following the team's 5-0 Ashes thrashing in Australia.
But the South Africa-born batsman was given hope of an international recall when new England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) chairman Colin Graves said there could be a way back if he scored enough runs in county cricket.
Yet just hours after he made his maiden first-class triple century for Surrey on Monday, Pietersen was told by Andrew Strauss, the ECB's new director of cricket, he would not be selected by England this season -- and in practice that may well mean the end of Pietersen's international career.
"I am absolutely devastated that it looks like my hopes of an England recall have been brought to a close," said Pietersen in a furious attack in his column for the Daily Telegraph newspaper.
"They have used the word trust to justify not selecting me, well, trust is a two-way thing."
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