The existing 18 first-class county system has been questioned by certain experts, with Pietersen himself being a staunch advocate of replacing it with a franchise-based red-ball setup. In July last year, through a series of tweets, Pietersen had proposed a city-based structure, adding that “Test cricket will die” if the ECB didn’t follow the plan.

Speaking to talkSport after England’s Test series loss to the West Indies, Pietersen, once again, laid out his proposal, urging a restructure that has a smaller number of teams.

“You have to franchise county cricket,” he said. “You have to bring the best players together playing against each other as much as possible. Get rid of the riff-raff, get rid of a lot of players, there are too many counties, way too many counties. And there are people smart enough to deal with how you structure it, however you bring the best players, smaller amount of teams, eight or nine franchises.”

“And you know what, you pay some overseas players big bucks to come and play eight or nine first-class games a season in the UK. That’ll do it.”

“Pay them half a million quid, 750k pounds, a million pounds, I don’t care! These guys have all got money from broadcast rights, we all understand broadcast rights, they’ve got the money.”