In the English summer of 2012, in the midst of the England vs South Africa Test series, the hosts’ star batsman Kevin Pietersen sends some text messages to the players from the opposition camp, criticising his then captain Andrew Strauss and Director of Cricket Andy Flower.

Three years later, Strauss becomes Director of Cricket and tells desperate-for-a-comeback Pietersen that he won’t be part of the team to take on the Australians, his recent triple century for Surrey notwithstanding. If this happened in India or Pakistan, even Sri Lanka, the western world would have deemed it sweet revenge, the type which only teams from the sub-continent are famous for extracting. But since this involves England, certain pundits conveniently ignore the revenge factor and instead hail Strauss for taking English cricket forward.