Former England captain Michael Vaughan in an interview with foxsports.com.au has said that the English players were jealous after Pietersen bagged a huge IPL contract.
“I think there was a lot of jealousy,” Vaughan said. “And the players will completely deny it now but I think there was at the time when Kevin was on a massive contract.
“There were all sorts of whispers and rumours of cliques in the team. There was a little band of a few; Graeme Swann, Tim Bresnan, (James) Anderson, (Stuart) 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.
Pietersen’s desire to play in the IPL didn’t go down well with other English players. This was one part of several other problems which finally led to the end of his international career with the English cricket team.
“It wasn’t anything other than that Kev around that time wanted to go to the IPL. That’s how it all started to blow up and that’s when those factions came into play.
“He was saying to the team he wanted to play because it would further the development of the one-day team and all the one-day players would get the chance to play there and improve their game. They deemed that he just wanted to go for the money. He was on a big contract while not many of the other players were even getting sniffed at.
