Kevin Pietersen texts surprised South Africans

Kevin Pietersen once more looks to have a future with the England team. Here, we take a look back at his colourful career...

A member of the South Africa squad that toured England this summer has denied that his team-mates deliberately provoked Kevin Pietersen into sending them text messages during the Test series – and added that they were actually surprised at how much information the England batsman was sending them.

The ECB chief executive, David Collier, has accused the tourists of winding up Pietersen before he sent some of their players "provocative" texts about the then England captain, Andrew Strauss. However, Francois du Plessis, who was a non-playing member of the Proteas' Test squad, said of Collier's allegations: "There is absolutely no truth in it at all, honestly nothing. We were actually quite surprised how much contact there was coming from his side.

"It all came out because it was true. The text messages were true. As a team, we were quite surprised how much he was giving us."