Kevin Pietersen has been welcomed back into the England fold more than 12 years after the acrimonious end to his international career following one of the most bitter of the national team’s Ashes defeats.Pietersen, 46, has been appointed ‘specialist mentor’ to the England white-ball teams in the build-up to next year’s 50-over World Cup in South Africa. He will take up his duties as part of the coaching team for the T20 and 50-over games against Sri Lanka this month, series which complete this international summer.He will work alongside England white-ball coach Brendon McCullum and a coaching team that will include Marcus Trescothick, Tim Southee, Jeetan Patel and Sarah Taylor for the winter white-ball games in Australia and South Africa as well as throughout next summer.It is a remarkable return for one of England’s greatest yet most divisive cricketers, a player who was the central figure in the huge fall-out that followed the 5-0 thrashing by Australia in the 2013-14 Ashes that led to coach Andy Flower losing his job.Pietersen never played for England again after that series and went on to be scathingly critical of Flower, the then England captain Alastair Cook and several of his team-mates in his autobiography before finishing his career in county cricket and on the franchise circuit.Since then he has worked as a commentator, mainly on the Indian Premier League (IPL) he did so much to champion in its early years, while also spending time in wildlife preservation in his native South Africa, and more recently as a social media content creator.He returns with McCullum looking to build his own white-ball coaching staff to back up captain Harry Brook after losing his job with the England Test team earlier this year and being replaced by his fellow New Zealander Stephen Fleming.Kevin Pietersen was one of England’s most talented batters in a generation (Clive Mason/Getty Images)There is no question about Pietersen’s batting pedigree. Over an international career spanning 10 years Pietersen showed his white-ball prowess by playing in 136 one-day internationals and 37 T20 internationals for England, scoring more than 5,500 runs.He also made the small matter of 8,181 runs in 104 Tests and was a pioneer for many of the modern shots that have become common-place, mainly the left-handed switch hit.Pietersen has not been afraid to remain critical of the England setup, being particularly damning of the lack of preparation by McCullum’s side and their attitude towards training on tour in India early in 2025.He also told Cricinfo he was “bitterly disappointed” at Brook’s decision to pull out of the IPL last year because he felt he could fix Brook’s “real big flaw” against spin. Now he will get a chance to do just that when he works with the captain for England.