Kevin Pietersen has arrived in London for a series of meetings with his England team-mates and officials.
BBC News
Pietersen,
who was dropped in August, recently agreed a new England
contract but must
undergo a "reintegration" period before rejoining the team.England
Twenty20 captain Stuart Broad told BBC Breakfast he would be one of the
players to meet the 32-year-old."I want
to catch up with KP," he said. "The only way to move forward is to
talk about things."
Pietersen apologised to former
captain Andrew Strauss for
sending"provocative"
text messages to
opposing players during the Test series against South Africa .
The ECB
accepted the texts were not derogatory about Strauss and the Surrey batsman was given a new four-month
contract pending a successful outcome to his "reintegration" period.
England fly out to Abu Dhabi next week ahead of their four-Test
tour of India in November and December.
The meetings
were due to take place on Monday, after Pietersen was given permission to leave
South Africa by the Delhi Daredevils between
their Champion League Twenty20 fixtures, but his flight was delayed by 24
hours.
But
Pietersen tweeted on Tuesday to say he had landed in London .
Broad added:
"KP is having some meetings at the moment."He's
quite busy in South Africa so I think he's taking some time
out of his schedule to come see the guys.
"It will be a meeting with some of the hierarchy of the
ECB to just lay some things down."I
think there will be good meetings with most of the England players and hopefully we can move
forward and draw a line under the whole experience."
Rifts
between Pietersen and his team-mates surfaced over the summer, with the batsman
admitting to issues "in the dressing-room" after scoring a century in
the Headingley Test in August.Two days
after Pietersen was dropped over the texts scandal, Broad issued a statement
denying any involvement in a Twitter account called KP Genius that parodied the
South Africa-born batsman.England seamer Graham Onions, who is in the
squad for the India series, told BBC Sport he was not aware of any
cliques in the dressing-room or ill-feeling towards Pietersen.
"The England side prides itself on being a
really, really close-knit family," said Onions, who played the last of his
nine Tests against West Indies in June but was a squad member for the South Africa series.
"I can
honestly say that before this all came out, nothing had come up with regard to
any kind of cliques or anything like that."I've
got no problems with Kevin at all. He's a fantastic player, a high-profile
player and for me to play in the same side as Kevin Pietersen, as I have been
lucky enough to nine times, has been special. It would be nice to see Kevin in
that shirt again."
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