• Batsman insists he has no bitterness over missing out on Ashes triumph • ‘I’m not worrying about what has happened. I’m living my life’ he says

Kevin Pietersen has accepted his former team-mate and England’s current director of cricket, Andrew Strauss, was right to overlook him for this year’s Ashes series.

Pietersen was sacked by England last year, at which stage his international career appeared to be over. However, a clamour grew for him to be recalled to the squad before the Ashes after he hit 355 not out for Surrey against Leicestershire, an innings that prompted a meeting in May with Strauss. However Strauss decided not to recall the 35-year-old, with it no secret that the pair do not get on.

Asked at a Sports Industry Breakfast Club meeting on Thursday if Strauss made the correct move in leaving him out of the squad that went on to win the Ashes, Pietersen replied: “Absolutely. It seems to be the right decision at the moment and good luck to him. He’s done OK. Some of the stuff he has done with the England team and with getting past players back in the dressing room is brilliant”. Asked if he thought the door was now firmly closed on a return to the England squad, Pietersen added: “If it is, it is. I’m not sitting here worrying about what has happened. I’m living my life.

“I went there [to the meeting with Strauss] with a lot of positivity and left with quite a bit of negativity. He had a decision to make and he made his decision and it turned out absolutely fine. At the time I thought it was ridiculous, it was nonsense to leave me out. I might have said something stronger to him. But I am buzzing that England won and I am not looking back to the meeting in May thinking, ‘Oh goodness, things could have been so different.’ I am pretty cool about it.”

Pietersen, who hit 8,181 runs in 104 Tests, including 23 centuries, said he had many business interests but was in no mood to quit cricket yet. As well as playing for Surrey this year, he has represented St Lucia Zouks in the Caribbean Premier League and recently signed for the Dolphins in the South African Twenty20.

“Twenty20 is going to stay for sure because that form of the game brings a whole different audience to Test cricket,” said the 35-year-old. “I love Test cricket and I think we owe it to the great game, which is Test cricket, to speak positively about it. I don’t want to sit on this stage and say Test cricket is dead.”