Pietersen debate rages on

The Kevin Pietersen debate raged on as the England cricket team’s post-Ashes implosion plumbed new depths this week.

The management set-up, including, critically, captain Alastair Cook on Tuesday decided ‘KP’ was not part of the rebuilding process after one of the worst tours in the country’s history, which saw them suffer a humiliating 5-0 defeat in Australia.

In ending Pietersen’s international career and preaching the need to rebuild ‘team ethics and philosophy’, new ECB managing director Paul Downton & Co basically said they could not tolerate the batsman’s ego any more.

Rumours of a huge dressing room fall-out with Cook are surely exaggerated but there is little doubt the captain’s relationship with his maverick star is beyond repair.

The decision to force ‘KP’ into international retirement — after 8,181 runs and 23 Test match centuries at 47.28 let’s not forget — has split the country, while unconfirmed reports from Down Under claim sales of Tooheys and XXXX have peaked again as Aussie fans toast their foes’ brittle meltdown.

Pietersen himself took to Twitter to express his sadness at the outcome, leaving his wife, Jessica Taylor — once of pop group Liberty X fame — to claim English fans ‘deserve so much better — the truth’.

Motormouth talk show host and friend of ‘KP’ Piers Morgan then attacked Matt Prior for an alleged dressing room blowup, prompting Prior to get involved in the increasingly-unseemly fallout and deny accredited quotes.

It all left many pundits, ex-players and fans demanding some genuine answers from the suits at the ECB about why they now deem Pietersen — the side’s best batsman — to be surplus to requirements? Until that happens, and nobody is expecting it to be any time soon, the arguments over the treatment of one of the most divisive cricketers ever will rumble on.