Kevin Pietersen to miss entire IPL 6

The batsman has been ruled out of action for six to eight weeks due to a knee injury.

Kevin Pietersen has been ruled out of action for six to eight weeks due to a knee injury. This means England’s middle-order batsman will miss his team’s third and final Test against New Zealand that starts on Friday. He is also set to miss the entire sixth edition of the Indian Premier League that will run from April 3rd to May 26th. The hard-hitting batsman is a member of the Delhi Daredevils franchise in the T20 league.

Pietersen is believed to have suffered possible cartilage damage to his right knee. He had complained of the problem since England’s warm-up fixture in Queenstown last month.  Further tests on the cricketer will take place on his return to England.

Pietersen was reintegrated into the England national side in October this year after a controversial episode saw him being left out. It began when he stepped down from limited overs internationals. Though his official excuse was ‘too much cricket’, the real reason turned out to be a desire to be excused from England’s commitments when the IPL was on. What followed was a full blown feature film-like drama that included a spoof Twitter account, text messages from KP to South African players ridiculing his captain and teammates, a high on emotion press conference and a YouTube video apology.

The high-maintenance KP was dropped for the final Test against the Proteas that saw England lose their No 1 ranking. The decision was made because of his text messages to some of the South African cricketers that were critical of England captain Andrew Strauss and England coach Andy Flower. Though Pietersen reversed his retirement decision, he went on to miss out on the subsequent ODIs and the ICC World T20. A truce between the ECB and KP was finally achieved and the controversial cricketer made his way back into the side for the tour of India.

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