Joe Root Welcomes Pietersen Back to England Cricket as Mentor

Joe Root has seen English cricket at its most turbulent. He was there in the dressing room when Kevin Pietersen’s international career imploded in the wreckage of the 2013-14 Ashes. He is still there now, captain again, as Pietersen walks back through the door – this time as a mentor, not a maverick.

And Root’s message is clear: this is not 2014.

“The world is a very different place to what it was in 2014, and the England team is in a very different place to that as well,” he said, as Pietersen’s return to the England set-up was confirmed.

Pietersen back in England colours – in a different role

On Monday, England announced that Pietersen will join Brendon McCullum’s white-ball coaching staff as a mentor, working with the squad in the build-up to the 2027 World Cup in South Africa, the country of his birth. It is a striking move, not least because of the history.

Root is the only current England Test player who shared a dressing room with Pietersen. He was a young batter on that ill-fated 2013-14 Ashes tour, when a 5-0 hammering in Australia signalled the end of Pietersen’s international career and blew open the fault lines in the England hierarchy.

Only Root and Alastair Cook have scored more international runs for England than Pietersen’s 13,779. For a decade he was the lightning rod of English batting – inventive, audacious, ruthless on attacks that lost their nerve. His strokeplay looked like it belonged to another era, one that now feels entirely normal in modern white-ball cricket.

It also came with a cost. Pietersen’s England career was repeatedly engulfed in controversy. In 2012 he was dropped over allegations he sent derogatory text messages about then-captain Andrew Strauss to members of the South Africa team. He returned under Cook, but after the Ashes whitewash in 2013-14 he was jettisoned again. A year later, Strauss – by then England’s director of cricket – said Pietersen would not be recalled because of a “trust issue”.

Now Strauss is long gone from that role. Cook has retired. The dressing room has turned over almost entirely. And the man once deemed too divisive to pick is being invited back to shape England’s next generation of white-ball cricketers.

Root, who played 12 Tests and nine ODIs alongside Pietersen, sounded anything but wary.

“I’m fortunate enough to be in that position where I did play alongside him,” he told BBC Sport. “A lot of the guys will have watched him and got into the game because of him. It will be great for those guys to have the opportunity to work alongside him.”

A strong personality, and a resource England want to tap

Pietersen has never been one to bite his tongue. Root knows that as well as anyone.

“That's him as a person,” Root said. “When you get someone involved you want them to be themselves and you want them to come into an environment for a reason.

“With his experience and knowledge about the game, and all that he can offer, I think he's going to be great.”

Root pushed back at the instinct to dwell on old scars or hypothetical flashpoints.

“You're looking at so many hypothetical things that could go wrong, when there are so many amazing things he will bring to that environment,” he said.

This is not nostalgia talking. Root’s memories of Pietersen are rooted in the graft of the training ground, not just the highlights reels.

“He was always someone who gave me a huge amount, to be honest,” Root said of his early days as a 21-year-old international in 2012. “He didn't need to offer as much as he did to me, but he would sit there and work tirelessly, making sure I felt comfortable with my own game. He listened to all my questions and helped as much as he could. As a senior player, he was outstanding.”

Pietersen will link up with McCullum’s staff for the white-ball series against Sri Lanka next week. The thought of two of the most attacking batters of their generation shaping England’s limited-overs mindset is an intriguing one. For Root, who has been mentored by both at different stages of his career, it is a full-circle moment.

Root’s England chase a clean sweep – and full stands

While Pietersen prepares to step into a new role, Root has more immediate concerns. He will lead England in the third and final Test against Pakistan at Edgbaston on Wednesday, with a 3-0 clean sweep on the line in his first series since returning as captain.

As with the previous two Tests, Root declined to name his XI ahead of the toss, though England are expected to be unchanged. The cricket has flowed. The wins have come. But the noise around the game has not all been celebratory.

Since England wrapped up victory at Lord’s in the second Test, a row has broken out over ticket prices for next summer’s home Ashes. At Edgbaston, seats in the famous Hollies Stand for the Ashes are listed at £165 – up from £125 for the Australia series in 2023.

Root chose his words carefully.

“I don't know what it takes to run a county or run a venue, I don't know what goes into that,” he said. “From a playing point of view and as a captain, you want the grounds to be full, and you want them to be full of every demographic of person.

“You want the game to feel like it is for everyone, that they can come to support you and enjoy that. I don't really know what more to say on it, to be honest. It would be great to see this place full and thriving, and for everyone to have the opportunity to come to watch Test cricket.”

The sight of empty seats during marquee series has become a warning sign for administrators. Players, though, live in the noise of the crowd. Root’s hope is simple: packed stands, and a sense that Test cricket remains reachable for ordinary supporters.

Stokes, McCullum and a habit England must break

There is another pattern Root is desperate to break this week. Under his predecessor Ben Stokes, England became renowned for explosive starts to Test series that often fizzled out. They have lost the final Test in each of their past six multi-match series.

Root knows exactly what that record looks like on paper.

Only a win in Birmingham changes the narrative. He did not pretend otherwise, but he refused to let the pursuit of a clean sweep be framed as a repudiation of what came before.

“We wouldn't have been able to play these last two games without all of the work those two did,” Root said of Stokes and former Test coach McCullum. “I think it's undervalued the impact what those two guys had on English cricket.

“You look at where we were and how we played our cricket, you look at how we've been able to perform in the last two games, a lot of that is down to the hard work and the way they changed the mentality within English cricket and this team.

“I'm not going to sit here and have comparisons thrown against those two, I don't think that's fair whatsoever. They deserve a lot of credit for the last two performances.”

So Root stands at an interesting crossroads: defending the Stokes–McCullum revolution, while trying to add his own layer of consistency; welcoming back Pietersen, once exiled, to guide a white-ball future; asking for full grounds as prices climb.

The cast has changed since that chaotic Ashes winter a decade ago. The stakes, though, look very familiar.