Former England captain Alastair Cook believed Kevin Pietersen’s return to the national set-up could provide England’s white-ball side with fresh ideas and “stardust”, but warned that managing the strong personalities of Pietersen and head coach Brendon McCullum could become crucial if the pair differ over the team’s direction.

Pietersen was appointed specialist mentor of England’s white-ball sides on Monday in the build-up to next year’s ODI World Cup in South Africa, returning to the national set-up more than a decade after his international career ended.

Cook, who played alongside Pietersen for England, felt the appointment represented something of a shift in McCullum’s approach, with England gradually adding more experienced voices to the backroom staff.

“I suppose we’re going full circle a little bit with the coaching staff now. Brendon McCullum, when he first came in, got rid of everyone and just wanted two or three people around. And now they seem to be adding a bit more experience. He will have a lot of experience,” Cook said on the Stick to Cricket podcast.

Cook believed Pietersen’s unconventional thinking could make him a valuable sounding board for England’s players, but acknowledged that his strong personality adds an unpredictable element to the set-up.

“If KP sees something he doesn’t like, he will say it,” Cook said.

“They (McCullum and Pietersen) are mavericks. So they will have different opinions on certain things. Managing that relationship—McCullum, who is actually a very good people’s person, so it might not be an issue—but if they start, if they start having different ideas, that could leave Harry (Brook) in the middle. This is like the worst-case scenario.

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“The best-case scenario, you’ve got a bloke who’s extremely talented, thinks probably differently because those guys do. Adding that experience into the mix of players, stardust as well, and players like being surrounded by people with stardust, and that could, that could just generate some more things.

“The worst-case scenario, as we all know, goes like that and they clash heads. That’s the worst case.”

Michael Vaughan also backed the move, pointing to Pietersen’s work ethic during his playing days and England’s willingness to bring back someone who has publicly criticised the team’s preparation in the recent past.

“They’ve been willing to appoint someone that’s had a pop at them not too long ago, which I like. I like the fact that Rob Key has gone, ‘You know what? He’ll help the England team.’ And some of the things he said was about preparation and practice. He had a right good go at them in India for not practising hard enough in the white-ball series,” Vaughan said.

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“He’s had a pop at them before the Ashes last year about preparation. So maybe he’ll be the one. There wasn’t—Alastair was right up there with the hardest workers as well—but there was no one that worked harder in my time as an England cricketer than Kevin Pietersen. So he’ll definitely bring that drive to the England scene.”

Vaughan also described Pietersen as “an absolute diamond” during the early years of his England career.

“I always say, in my time, that I got Kev from 2004 to 2008; honestly, I thought he was a diamond. An absolute diamond.”

“Honestly, I couldn’t have asked for a better person in the team. You told him to do something, he’d do it. Always trained hard, he was always on time, very disciplined. And then it started to go, and the whisper was, because I wasn’t around, that he got a bit too kind of IPL-focused and upset one or two in the team,” he said.