As he stood in the middle of St George’s Park, Kevin Pietersen could see his old England team-mate approaching. Heavens, it was hot out there. Matt Prior was dressed like a backpacker, baggy shirt, baggier shorts, sandals.

You can do that on radio. Pietersen was suited and booted for the cameras. Smart, but a little uncomfortable. He began flapping his jacket, opening and closing it, to cool down. And they bumped fists, like batsmen do, and talked.

They asked after families, after children. ‘Everything OK? Everything fine?’ Still Pietersen fanned. He would know the eyes of the world were on him, watching for signs of the discord that marked his final days with England. Flap, flap, flap, chat, chat, chat. It looked cordial, from a distance.

Kevin Pietersen spoke to Sportsmail's Chief Sports Writer Martin Samuel in South Africa

Only when Prior moved away did Pietersen stop the cooling process, though. Behavioural psychologists call it leaking. The externalising of nervous energy. He wanted it done. He wanted that first exchange over. Then he could move on. What he wants more than anything is to move on. ‘Don’t make this all about the old stuff,’ he says, before we part, interview done. ‘Make it a good piece. I couldn’t be happier now. So calm, so chilled out.’

And he is. Pietersen says the moment he knew he could no longer score runs for England — the point when he wouldn’t have been capable of that level of performance, rather than just wasn’t allowed to play — he let go.

‘I saw Andy Flower last year,’ he says. ‘I asked him, “How are you?” He said, “Hmm, I’m OK”. Then he asked how I was. I told him that when I thought I was able and fit and could score centuries for England — up to about 2017 — I was still angry. I knew I should be making Test hundreds and my career was stopped — by him.

‘But when I realised I had no interest in playing for England, that it was over, I let it go. It was a relief — an incredible, cool feeling. I saw Graeme Swann at the IPL, I met Matty Prior here, I’ve played golf with Andrew Strauss, I live in such a good space now.

‘None of that old stuff bothers me. It doesn’t enter my mind unless I’m asked about it, like now. At the time it matters a lot, a breakdown in any relationship. Things can get hot-headed, all the “he said, she said”, but then you step away and live your life.’

That is what Pietersen, now 39, is doing. He moved from London to Surrey and a quieter life. He took up golf five years ago, plays every day and is already a three handicap. He works ferociously with his foundation to save the north African white rhinoceros from extinction. And he talks about cricket to anyone who will listen. In South Africa for this Test series he is working with talkSPORT, Sky and local channel Supersport. As he did as a batsman, he plays a few shots.

Pietersen talked to old England team-mate Matt Prior (R) during the third Test in Port Elizabeth

‘To be able to call a game similarly to how I played it,’ he muses, ‘people enjoy that. Some didn’t like the way I played, they thought I was reckless, but to articulate that, to show how much I thought about it and give my perspective — people are discovering I might have a cricket brain after all. There was a lot of method in my madness. I love talking about that. It changes people’s opinions hearing how I thought about the game.’

Yet, inescapably, Pietersen’s past invades his present. So much of his history informs the way he thinks about cricket now. It is there in his thoughts around the handling of Jofra Archer, or the modern relationship between the ECB and its playing staff.

Pietersen was the first English cricketer to excel in three forms of the game: Test, one-day and T20. He was the first to have to decide between franchise cricket and international commitments. Compromises that are commonplace now were battlegrounds when he played. It’s not that he’s bitter, more that he notices the changes and what drove them.

‘I’m man enough to say I made mistakes,’ he says. ‘I acknowledge those mistakes. I apologise for some of the stuff I did. But some of it I was forced into because of the environment I was in. I look at the way the England team are led and looked after now, and think back to 2008, 2009 and 2010 when I was the only person playing every form of the game. If I was treated better then, if I was treated as players are now, it would have been different. But I was the first of a kind and I was pushed into a corner.

Pair fell out in 2014 following Pietersen's sacking by England but they've buried the hatchet

‘All you guys see that now — and if you don’t, you’ve got blinkers on. The way I was treated, the way I was briefed against, the way I was made to feel I was siding with Lalit Modi’s IPL as opposed to Giles Clarke’s ECB caused huge friction. You’ve got Eoin Morgan, captain of the one-day side, and two years ago he’s missing games to play in the IPL. I talked about missing Tests to make the money all the other players were making and that caused massive problems.’

He puts on a pious voice. ‘How can you even think of missing an England game? How can you possibly think about it? Now, they miss England games left, right and centre to play the IPL. I was forced to behave the way I did. I wish I played in cricket now and enjoyed the fruits as they are. People still point fingers at me over this. It’s a lot harder to ask why and I don’t think the other side get asked about their side of it. Strauss contributed to a Sky documentary and said, “I pushed KP away when I should have asked him in”.

‘Our relationship was hurt when he took the captaincy and brushed me aside and he was completely against me missing games for England to play in the IPL. So there was friction over that. And when I asked, after one massive blow-out, to travel back from the Caribbean to see my wife who was appearing in Dancing On Ice, and the ECB firmly said no — that I couldn’t see my family, having had the captaincy taken away from me — that hurt, too. But no one’s gone and asked them if they regret it.

‘What I hated was the sensationalism because it has left me with a public persona that isn’t actually me. I made the documentary on Sky with Nasser Hussain hoping that people might think, ‘F****** hell, he’s not that dude”.

Pietersen was a hero for England during the 2005 Ashes but now has a much quieter life

‘The ECB were using the newspapers — your paper in particular — to brief against me, and it changed public perception. So I still get hammered for stuff that happened so long ago, I’m still perceived as some hot-headed maverick who was all about himself. And that couldn’t be further from the truth.

‘I wanted to be treated the way players are treated now. I wanted to cash in like all the other top players. Because it’s a job. I’m done now. I don’t get millions from the IPL, I don’t have a central contract. I’ve said this to a lot of sportsmen. When the time is right, cash in. An injury comes, or they take against you, and they’ll get rid of you as quickly as they can.’

No doubt Pietersen’s route into English cricket was a factor, too. He has long made the barbed observation that he was an Englishman when he was scoring runs, and a South African when he failed, but it is when he sees parallels in the treatment of Archer that a warning should sound.

This has been a difficult tour for Archer. Questions are being asked about his up-and-down pace — 90mph one over, 80mph the next — and an elbow injury it is said is not visible on scans. Last week, before the Port Elizabeth Test, Archer was painted as being in a bowl-off with Mark Wood. Wood won. It may be just an unfortunate sequence of events, but Pietersen is instinctively sympathetic to a fellow import who may be suffering in an unfamiliar environment.

‘Sometimes we should just let people be,’ he says. ‘Britain is meant to be this place that encourages and looks after everybody — but Archer is copping it at the moment, and probably because he’s from the Caribbean.

Pietersen's past invades his present - it's there in thoughts around handling of Jofra Archer (R)

‘I learned to live with it, but you media guys are responsible, not the player. You drive the perception of him. Jofra just does what Jofra does. And they should be dealing with it. There shouldn’t be people drip-feeding bull**** into the media about him. It shouldn’t be a coach talking to this guy, who then says something to this guy, who says something to another guy, because of something that happened somewhere else. Close the circuit, because it certainly wasn’t closed when I was playing.

‘Michael Vaughan couldn’t believe how much briefing there was against me in that final Ashes series. Every day guys were hammering me, bashing me and I can see it beginning with Jofra at the moment. And it’s not cool because it affects the person, it affects his career. It’s not how England is supposed to be.

‘If there’s a different character, it’s a problem. We are talking about “they” here, and I don’t know who exactly “they” are — but “they” should be doing more to get the best out of him.

‘Deal with the player. First question: does he want to play Test cricket? If I was in that environment, that’s what I would ask. “Dude, do you want to play Test cricket or not? Because if you don’t, that’s no problem. Tell us, it’s absolutely fine. I’ll use you like we did in the World Cup, to win a World Cup that united the nation, produced a huge day for English sport, ended up with English cricket winning huge awards on BBC Sports Personality of the Year. I’ll use you there. You don’t have to play Test cricket”.

‘That’s what England’s management should say. But don’t start f****** briefing the media. “Is he injured, is he not, does he want to be part of the team?” No — that’s nonsense. I’m against that.

Pietersen is sympathetic to a fellow import who may be suffering in an unfamiliar environment

‘I’m a straight-shooter. Speak to me. Don’t speak behind my back. If you want to say something, good or bad, come and say it. Not everybody likes everybody, and that’s OK. But don’t talk behind people’s backs. I think I see some of that with Jofra because of the way things are written or said. And that’s not right. “Play T20 if you want — it’s your life. Play one-day — it’s your life. You’re one of the best bowlers in the world. We’ll use you there and find someone else for Test cricket”.

‘But it becomes trial by media and that affects him, his relationship with the players, the coach and management. So what if he doesn’t want to play Test cricket? Whose life is it? It’s not The Sun’s life, it’s not the Daily Mail’s life, it’s not a bloke who lives in Scunthorpe’s life. It’s Jofra Archer’s life, his family’s life. Look after the individual. Players have been through this before and no one wins. Who won in my time? The briefings that happened, the rules that were made, the stuff that they said — who won?

‘The situation with Archer could escalate. You guys can get a story that lasts a long time but is he going to win? No. Does English cricket win? No. We might lose him from all cricket. He might decide “stuff you guys” and just go and play franchise cricket.’

The counter-argument is that Pietersen sees shadows because of the way his time with England ended, that because the conclusion of his career was negative, he feels nothing has changed. The ECB will claim no more could have been done to make Archer feel welcome and settled, and nobody is briefing against him.

'The situation with Archer could escalate,' Pietersen said. 'We might lose him from all cricket'

Yet there is talk around his inconsistencies with the ball, whether it is his drop in speed in the Manchester cold last summer, or his problems on this tour, complicated by injury. It is understandable, too, if Pietersen is hyper-sensitive around the issue of inclusion. Even now, he remains an outsider.

‘I couldn’t be a full-time coach but I could be a consultant,’ he says. ‘A number of the England players have spoken to me in the past few weeks about batting. “What did I do here? What would you do there?” I love that stuff.

‘I can add a lot of value with, say, the way they’re playing spin now. I went through my career with people thinking I couldn’t play left-arm spin. I turned out in a charity game in Cape Town the day after the second Test and Graeme Smith opened the bowling to me with a left-arm spinner. I said to him, “Mate, give me a break, I’m not even f****** playing any more.” I went through a process of training to improve myself against it.

‘At least four England players have spoken to me on this tour. I coached on my last Ashes tour. Threw hundreds of balls down for the tail-enders, Jimmy Anderson and Chris Tremlett, to get them to play fast bowling. I loved that. I have said to Ashley Giles (ECB director of cricket) that I’d do it for him. But he hasn’t responded.’

He laughs. Maybe that would have bothered him a while ago, another rejection by his adopted country. But he brushes it off. ‘Retirement goes two ways,’ he explains. ‘To hell with it, fat and lazy, or stick to what you know, and keep that drive and personality. Have a look at Freddie Flintoff. He is now in the most unbelievable nick. He doesn’t drink and every time I see him I say, “Freddie, imagine if you were like this when you played. You’d still be out there”. He acknowledges it, too. He wants to work hard, wants to look good on television. Brilliant. I’m along that route.

It is understandable if Pietersen is hyper-sensitive around the issue of inclusion

‘I’m fitter now than when I played, living a much healthier life. I eat better. If I drink it’s more a binge, a big night, rather than wine every day. I work in patches. I travel with my family. I spend time in the wild with animals. I’m in a much calmer space. And I live in a very quiet lane away from the busy lights. It’s a bubble — completely different from when I was front page, middle page, back page, photographers everywhere.

‘We lived in the same street as Hugh Grant, Frank Lampard and Liz Hurley — it was crazy street. And for a while it was amazing. But now I couldn’t wish for anything better — so calm, so quiet.

‘My personality wasn’t what it is now. I made mistakes. I wasn’t wise or experienced. Now I understand a lot more. I wish it was different then, but I wouldn’t have been the same player. My personality on the field was my personality off the field. I wouldn’t have achieved it as a different person.

‘But I don’t think about that. It was what it was. To have made the journey from there to now, I couldn’t be happier. I can do things now because of the person I was then. We took over Piccadilly Circus before Christmas to raise awareness about the threat of rhino extinction. I could only do that because of my career.’

Pietersen had recently enjoyed one of those big nights he talked about. He needed a hangover-absorbing injection of food. I asked what he talked about with Prior. ‘He just said, “We won some amazing games together”, and, you know, we did,’ he says. ‘It’s all good stuff. Such a long time ago.’

It must feel that way. But they keep dragging him back in.

Listen to Kevin Pietersen as part of the talkSPORT 2 commentary team at the Fourth Test on Friday.

Kevin Pietersen supports the Care For Wild Rhino Sanctuary. He continues to raise awareness for the many orphaned rhinos who have lost their mothers due to poaching, highlighting what really happens when a rhino is poached, a baby is orphaned, and the solutions to these problems. If you would like to help, you can donate to Care For Wild by going to the official link: https://www.careforwild.co.za/donate