ECB hit by South Africa legal threat after cricket chief claims over KP 'provocation'



South Africa have reacted with fury to David Collier’s suggestion that they were responsible for the Kevin Pietersen text scandal and are considering legal action against the ECB.



Sportsmail can reveal that relations between England and South Africa have been plunged into crisis by the ECB’s chief executive’s ill-judged decision to go on the attack and shift the blame from Pietersen.



After Collier insisted Pietersen was only replying to texts, a senior member of Cricket South Africa told Sportsmail: ‘If these comments are accurate then this could be defamatory. This will be taken to board level and an explanation sought.



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‘The suggestion from the ECB that there was a conspiracy to entrap one of their players is beyond absurd. Of course it could lead to legal action if no apology is given.’



Pietersen was dropped ahead of the third and final Test in the summer series after Sportsmail revealed that he had sent ‘provocative’ messages to South African players but Collier gave the affair a new twist when he claimed it was all the opposition’s fault.



Collier insists that Pietersen, who last week apologised over the texts, was only responding to missives sent to him by his ‘friends’ in the South African dressing room.



‘That is our understanding,’ said the chief executive. ‘It is a very thin line between fair and unfair. These were responses to messages from certain members of the South African team and I would not condone an England player doing it if it were the other way round.



‘I certainly think South Africa provoked the situation.’



Provoked: Collier (below, far right) claimed Pietersen was entrapped







It is a change of tack from the ECB that has enraged South Africa, who have insisted all along that none of their players have behaved improperly in a crisis that has left Pietersen’s relationship with them as strained as his situation with his own team-mates.



Pietersen has admitted making comments about his then captain Andrew Strauss in the messages.



‘There was definitely a policy that was happening but we shouldn’t blame the South Africans,’ said Collier — doing just that. ‘We should be above that.’



Cricket South Africa, who — after considerable thought — described the BlackBerry Messenger texts as ‘banter’ when Sportsmail first put their existence to them, reacted angrily.



‘That is rubbish. That is not the case at all. No-one tried to rile KP,’ said a spokesman.



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Later came the threat of legal action against the ECB as the South Africans consider their next move.

‘This is a bleak day for cricket relations between England and South Africa,’ said the Cricket South Africa official.



‘Nobody here can quite believe what Collier is accusing us of. It is beyond ridiculous and it is beneath the dignity of English cricket.’



Collier did accept that Pietersen, who is now undergoing a ‘reintegration process’ with England players and management ahead of his proposed return for the Test tour of India which begins next month, should have reacted differently to the messages.



‘Those messages were of a nature that Kevin, with hindsight, should have refuted straight away and moved on,’ said Collier on the BBC’s Sportsweek programme.



‘They were trying to undermine a team and another team ethic. There are probably mixed feelings for South Africa now.



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‘Certain feelings that maybe it had worked but others that they might have disrupted a player and we would have been unhappy had it been one of ours.’



No-one at the ECB has seen the messages as Pietersen and the South Africans have all insisted that they were immediately deleted.

