Petals flowered
The other main target of vitriol is coach Andy Flower, for whom KP makes no secret of his contempt. He also outlines how he was in two minds about his one-day career and wanted to give it up to achieve a better work-life balance and make his career more manageable.
Yet in 2011, at the height of all this discussion, he sent an over-friendly email to Flower opening with the line ‘Howsit Petals?' — the nickname Flower used to have in Zimbabwe, one only really used by southern Africans.
In the nauseating email he declared an ambition to be one-day captain but only if Flower stayed on as coach so that they could work together — in contrast to his claim in the book that the pair had not get on ‘ever since 2009'.
Pietersen also calls Flower's coaching into question. He writes: ‘I know you are a dreadful coach not by how you won but by how you lost. Your methods created an environment where people became terrified of failing.'
Yet the facts do not support the idea that Flower was a bad coach, however poor that last tour of Australia. He took England to No 1 in the world in three forms of the game, winning three Ashes series, one of them away, and achieved an away series win in India, admittedly with Pietersen playing his part.
