England look for Pietersen cover

England's selectors are considering their options after Kevin Pietersen was ruled out of the rest of the tour to Australia with a fractured rib.

He was hit by a ball from Glenn McGrath during Friday's game in Melbourne and will be out for three to five weeks.

"I've never been hit so hard - I couldn't breathe for a couple of minutes," he said.

Vikram Solanki, Rob Key, Mal Loye, Alastair Cook and Ravi Bopara are among the potential replacements.
But they will face a huge task to replace a batsman who top scored with 82 at the MCG and prior to the game had a one-day average of 55 and a strike rate of 95 per 100 balls.

Pietersen was 73 not out when he sustained the injury after advancing down the pitch to try to pull the ball away on the leg-side.

He immediately clutched his right side in agony and, although he continued his innings several minutes later following treatment by physio Dean Conway, he was quickly despatched to hospital following his dismissal, where a scan confirmed the fracture.
"I have been hit quite a few times in my career and I thought I would be OK with a bit of ice.

"When it hit me I couldn't breathe for a couple of minutes but I knew it was a bit more serious than previous times.

"It restricted my breathing and it restricted my strokeplay which was frustrating because I wanted to get a hundred," said Pietersen.

"I'm really down at the moment to be leaving Australia without a victory under our belt. Every single one of the guys is hurting but they will come out fighting."


The prognosis for Pietersen's recovery means he should be fit in time for the World Cup, which begins in the Caribbean on 13 March.

"I'll go home and get my fitness back as fast as I can and come back stronger for the bigger picture, which is the World Cup," he added.

England now need to call up a replacement but when asked who he thought it should be, Pietersen replied: "I'm no selector. I'm just distraught to be going home."

Under-fire Pietersen shrugs off criticism

England batsman Kevin Pietersen says he wishes he could have done more to prevent his country's horror run in the Ashes, but has laughed off suggestions from Australian coach John Buchanan that he is not a team player.

The tourists are 4-0 down in the series and facing a whitewash as they arrive in Sydney today to prepare for the fifth Test, which begins on Tuesday.

Pietersen has faced criticism for his reluctance to move up the batting order from number five, with Buchanan saying he shows no evidence of being a team man.

But Pietersen says a lack of mental preparedness stopped him from an earlier move up the order.

He moved up to number four in the second innings of the MCG Test, only to be bowled by Stuart Clark for 1.

Pietersen says it would not have been in the team's best interests to make the move any earlier.

"I know there's been a lot of hype in the media and it's just a case of me getting myself mentally tuned in and mentally right," he said.

"I found that in the last couple of days I have been right and I have felt good for it and I was never ever going to put the team in jeopardy of me going in to bat at four, knowing I wasn't right."

Pietersen said he will take it as a compliment that Buchanan is still trying to ruffle him up.

"It obviously still just means quite a lot to the Australians to be still trying to chuck a bomb into the England camp," he said.

"They've done it six to eight months leading up to this Test series, they'll probably be doing it after the series and I'm not going to get involved in a slanging match between me and the coach of Australia.

"They obviously want to win 5-0 and maybe he's trying to get into my head to make me wonder if I am a lone ranger - which I am not. We are a team.

"I give everything I have for this England team - on the field, in the dressing room and in the nets.

"To suggest I play for myself, don't care about my team-mates or the team or choose exactly where I want to bat is total rubbish."

Pietersen lamented England's heartbreaking defeat in the second Test in Adelaide, where they posted over 500 in their first innings and still lost.

He said he had batted for just half an hour longer in the second innings, England would have won.

He said there was plenty of incentive for the team to win the final Test at the SCG.

"To know that that stadium's going to be full, it's going to be full in a great arena, there are going to be thousands and thousands of Barmy Army, it's going to be fantastic," he said.

"That picks us up enough and with such a huge Test match, knowing that we've got to try to salvage some sort of pride or something towards it, it will pick the boys up."

Pietersen on the England outer, says Buck

Australian cricket coach John Buchanan has questioned whether South African-born England batsman Kevin Pietersen is a team player, saying he seems "distanced" from the rest of the team.

Buchanan was speaking after England crashed to defeat inside three days at the MCG yesterday, with Pietersen making just 1 in the second innings after being promoted to number four in the order.

England coach Duncan Fletcher has confirmed that Pietersen had been asked to make the move up the order at the start of the tour but was reluctant to make the move.

Buchanan said Pietersen was one of England's key strike players but said he always seemed to be removed from his team-mates on the field.

"That might be because that's where England want him to field, they want him to field out on the boundary, but he's a good fieldsman," he said.

"Somebody that's good around the ring - it surprises me that he always seems to be distanced from the rest of the group."

Pietersen has also been criticised for taking singles to rotate the strike when batting with tailenders at the end of the innings.

"[Pietersen] certainly talks about himself as a team player - I don't personally see any evidence of that, but that's from a distance," Buchanan said.

"I'm not in their dressing rooms and he could be one of the greatest team men of all time."