Kevin Pietersen on retirement: "I'm good as gold at the moment"

Star English batsman Kevin Pietersen has snubbed any suggestion of a possible retirement, amid growing speculation on his future, following the shock exit of teammate Graeme Swann. Pietersen who recently played his 100th Test during the Ashes series in Brisbane, also brushed off questions about the tourists troubled campaign of Australia.

“I’m 33 years of age, I’m batting as well as I’ve ever batted,” the English linchpin told reporters in Melbourne when asked whether he could be the next to call it a day.

“I’ll retire when I can’t get up to play for England, I’m good as gold at the moment.”

He further reiterated that he would not be drawn into Swann’s retirement saga, his decision to walk away from the team and the spinner’s suggestion that some players have “no idea how far up their own backsides they are”, being directed at Pietersen.

“I’m not giving any energy to what happened yesterday, the only energy that I’ve got on this tour left in me is for Melbourne on the 26th, training today, training tomorrow and Sydney,” he said.

“My interest levels in yesterday are less than zero.”

Pietersen was pragmatic, when questioned whether England could be entering a period of renewal after losing three Tests to Australia on the trot and conceding the Ashes with two games left to play.

“I think we’ve proved that we’re world-class players. You don’t play three Test matches and become horrendous cricketers, you don’t turn up on an Australian tour and lose 5-0 and never have a good day in your career again,” the combative batsman said.

“I haven’t got a clue what’s going to happen but I know — and that’s what keeps a smile on our faces — the guys that were here in 2006-2007 know, that good things do happen. The sun comes up, you leave, you go home and you turn things around.”

Pietersen also conceded that the Australians have played “much better cricket” and that England have been “hurt big time here”; but that the teams morale was healthy and constructive talks have been doing the rounds in the dressing room ahead of the Boxing Day Test.

“We’ve had some fairly decent conversations over the last few days on how we want to now try and turns things around. We owe it to ourselves and we owe it to a lot of people who’ve paid a lot of money to come over here and support us,” he said.

“We’ve let a lot of people down and we now need to turn ourselves on, and that starts today.”