London: Former England cricketer-turned-commentator Kevin Pietersen has revealed that he’d like to help the “new young England batting side” as it aims to come out of a major slump, which has seen them win just two of the last 18 Tests.
There are positive signs though as the team under new skipper Ben Stokes and head coach Brendon McCullum has won the opening Test of the three-match series against New Zealand at Lord’s recently.
The 41-year-old Pietersen, who has played 104 Tests and scored more than 8,000 runs in the format, besides another 4,000-plus runs in ODIs, opined that England don’t need just one but a “couple of coaches”.
“I’d like to help this new young England batting side. I’d like to help them because I think what England need is, they need a couple of coaches in there that are not scared to lose their job,” Pietersen, one of the all-time England greats along with Alastair Cook, Joe Root, Graham Gooch, Alec Stewart and David Gower, was quoted as saying by mirror.co.uk.
Pietersen has also played plenty of T20 cricket for his country and was part of several T20 leagues, including the IPL. But the cricketer, who averages 47.28 in Tests, has not done any formal coaching job since his retirement in 2018.
The cricketer said that he wants to give the players a “positive mindset” and help them think “outside of the box”.
“But to really back them. Back the youngsters and give them that positive mindset on thinking outside of the box, being creative, and being positive. So it’s not a position where you look at a lot of coaches around the world and you think ‘he needs that job’. I don’t need that job but I would like to help these guys,” said Pietersen.
Pietersen also said the appointment of Stokes as skipper and New Zealander McCullum as Test coach were positive signs for England.
–IANS