Former English cricketer Kevin Pietersen heavily criticized English cricket for prioritizing next year’s World Cup over the Test cricket.

While England cricket team is currently not in a good form in the Test cricket, they are performing much dominantly in the ODI cricket. Pietersen believes that it is not a good sign to giving importance the shorter formats rather than the publicly care-able Test cricket.

On Friday, the 37-year-old said, “I don’t know which direction they want to go in. We won a T20 World Cup, we won the Ashes home and away, we beat India in India a few years ago.

“England haven’t won a 50-over World Cup, I know that was the message a few years ago to do that and you can see they are driving towards that World Cup in England next summer, at the detriment of Test cricket. And I think it’s sad and frustrating for us as players who have played over 100 Test matches.

“The public care a lot more about Test match cricket than they do about the shorter form of the game. The big series will continue to exist, the Ashes will be fine, India v Pakistan, Australia against South Africa.”

After the 1-1 draw at the end of the 2-match home Test series against Pakistan, England will now face the Scotland team in one-off ODI on this Sunday (June 10) in Edinburgh. After that, England will play 5-match ODI series and one-off T20I against Australia at home. It will be the first international series for Australia after the ball-tampering scandal in this March.

Since that scandal, Australian cricket team has continuously received criticism from the cricket world. Pietersen believes the win can shut the critic’s mouth.

The former English cricketer said, “They have just got to win, when you win the media go with you, when they lose they hammer you. Australia are always the pantomime villain, no doubt the English are going to go after them, but that’s the nature of the beast, they always go after us when we go there.”