Former England captain Michael Vaughan has revealed that many England cricketers were 'jealous' of Kevin Pietersen due to his million-dollar Indian Premier League contract in 2009.
Pietersen was bought by Royal Challengers Bangalore for $1,550,550, which made him the highest-paid cricketer in the IPL at the time alongside fellow England teammate Andrew Flintoff.
"I think there was a lot of jealousy," Vaughan said in an interview with foxsports.com.au.
"And the players will completely deny it now but I think there was at the time when Kevin was on a massive contract.
"There were all sorts of whispers and rumours of cliques in the team. There was a little band of a few; Graeme Swann, Tim Bresnan, (James) Anderson, (Stuart) Broad and Matt Prior. The whispers were they were on one side and Kevin was kind of standing on his own on the other side," the former England captain said.
Vaughan further said that Pietersen wanted to go to the IPL because he felt it would improve him as a player and that his participation in the league would open the doors for other English cricketers as well. However, his England teammates deemed that Pietersen 'wanted to go for the money'.
"It wasn't anything other than that Kev (Kevin Pietersen) around that time wanted to go to the IPL. That's how it all started to blow up and that's when those factions came into play," said Vaughan.
"He was saying to the team he wanted to play because it would further the development of the one-day team and all the one-day players would get the chance to play there and improve their game. They deemed that he just wanted to go for the money. He was on a big contract while not many of the other players were even getting sniffed at.
"It was very much Kevin against the team in terms of that one," he added.
(With inputs from IANS)
