Warne Slams ECB for the Stans on KP

 Kevin Pietersen celebrating his 32nd birthday today  

Shane Warne has claimed the England and Wales Cricket Board have been ruled by their egos over their handling of Kevin Pietersen. Consequently Pietersen will play only Test matches for England and will not be available for the upcoming one-day series against Australia or the Twenty20 World Cup. Warne said in The Independent: "Any team that hasn't got Kevin Pietersen is significantly weaker. He's a match-winner so that's a big loss."It staggers me and I'm very surprised that the ECB didn't try and negotiate that better, drop their egos and say, okay we understand this, we want to keep our best players playing all the time.
Pietersen was keen to continue playing Twenty20 internationals after retiring from 50-over cricket but the ECB would only allow him to play in both forms of the game or neither.
He continued: "I think it's just a bit too much ego for my liking from the ECB.

"Who wouldn't want Kevin Pietersen in your side? He's a match-winner and he puts bums on seats because people love watching him play.

"He rubs off on the rest of the players. So to me it's a huge loss.

"People might give up more one-day cricket or they might give up Twenty20.

"Michael Clarke's given up Twenty20 in Australia because he can't play all three forms at that level, but you can't imagine Australia dropping him and saying don't worry about one-day cricket, just stick to Tests."