Kevin Pietersen ended his mammoth innings today at The Oval on 355 not out having run out of partners at the other end. His assault on Leicestershire’s attack, according to those who were there, was full of brains, brutality and brilliance. Pietersen’s timing couldn’t have been better, reaching his three hundred the night before, prefixing nicely his meeting with Andrew Strauss about a possible return to test cricket this summer. The meeting, we are told, didn’t go well for Pietersen.

Andrew Strauss today has confirmed that the door is now firmly closed on test cricket for Kevin Pietersen – England’s most gifted batsman for more than a generation will no more pull on his pads to face the best the world has to offer at Lords, the MCG or Eden Gardens. The fans will never again witness an innings of such destructive power as the one at Headingley vs South Africa, and the fans are the ones that have been robbed by the decision.

The ECB seems to work on a basis of whether your face fits and which public (private) school you went to. For all his failings, had Kevin Pietersen attended Caldicott prep, Farnham Royal and Radley College like Strauss or St Paul’s and Bedford like Alistair Cook, his reintegration in to the side wouldn’t have been an issue. Colin Graves we thought was different, but having told Pietersen to prove himself for Surrey and the door would be open, we now find out that Graves is yet another Cassandra in the midsts of the ECB halls of power. Pietersen has played five innings this year, three not outs and scored 467 runs at an average of 233.50 – if that’s not proving yourself in the county game I don’t know what is.

There are members of the cricket literati as well who are glad to see the back of Pietersen whose talents they have always had a mixture of envy and admiration of. Simon Hughes (Latymer Upper School) was on 5Live last night saying that this innings didn’t really mean much because it was against Leiecestershire – never mind that no one else, including Kumar Sangakkara, who scored 10% of the runs KP did, scored many – and that Hughes’ own highest score in first class cricket was 53 making his own qualifications for which innings matter and which don’t irrelevant – I’m sure as a bowler if he’d have taken all ten wickets in an innings against this Leicestershire side he’s have still been pretty proud of it. For the record the bowling attack in question was Australian test and ODI bowler Clint McKay, ably backed up by county giant Charlie Shreck who has 490 first class wickets to his name – hardly a shabby opening pair.

Strauss has said that a lack of professionalism in the past has made it too difficult to pick Pietersen, and yet we’re talking about a man here who was so unprofessional he called said batsman a “cunt” live on air for which he later apologised – to the viewers for hearing it, not for saying it in the first place. Strauss shouldn’t be anywhere near the job he now has due to his closeness to so many current players, for good or ill, but that’s the way English cricket works. If you went to a private school, read the Telegraph, vote Tory and now a decent Chablis when you see one then all’s well that ends well.

Australia, Pakistan, West Indies, India – all these teams when they were winning things had difficult players to deal with; Warne, Imran Khan, Richards, Ganguly; all mavericks, all brilliant and all questionable at times but great players, leaders, inspirational? Hell yes and the fact that Pietersen cannot be brought back in to the team is a failure of management; England don’t want cricketers they want robots. The day they can send out a bowling machine instead of an actual bowler is the day they’ll be happiest. Utterly pathetic leadership, from utterly pathetic men.