'No need for KP to have love-in, but mutual respect a must'

Peter Moores, the ex-England coach sacked after a row with Kevin Pietersen, has said there’s no need for the batsman to have a “love-in” with his team-mates if he is to resume his international career.

However, Peter Moores said “mutual respect” was necessary. The England selectors were due to meet on Tuesday to pick their squad for the upcoming four-Test tour of India, with the party set to be made public on Thursday. “You don’t need to have a love-in but you need to respect each other,” Moores, now coach of Lancashire, told BBC Radio’s Test Match Special.

“It’s not an easy decision. I know Andy (Flower) very well and he’ll be desperately keen, as will Cook, to do well in India. They’re very competitive people. “Andy’s assessment is what has he got behind the scenes. No one on the outside can know that. In some ways going to the subcontinent couldn’t have come at a tougher time.”  Pietersen’s desire to play more often in the IPL has been central to his recent dispute with the England and Wales Cricket Board.

In a recently published interview with the Cricketer magazine, he said of the IPL: “Every board has accepted it apart from the ECB. Some part of international cricket may have to give as the IPL is not going away.” Pietersen, whose average of nearly 50 in Tests means he is on the verge of joining the game’s greatest batsmen, is also understood to be unhappy at what he believes is the involvement of several England mates in a mocking fake Twitter account, KP Genius, that has since been closed down.