I retired from ODI cricket and the ECB banned me from T20s too, recalls Kevin Pietersen

The South Africa-born Englishman had played 136 ODIs but being an all-format player was unable to keep going on all fronts. He had thus quit ODIs, with the intention to participate in the T20 World Cup later that year along with plying his trade in Tests. However, the England Cricket Board soon stated its policy barred players from having such autonomy, since the limited-overs formats fell under the same bracket and will have to be treated as a group.

"As the programming and planning for ODI and T20 format cricket are very closely linked we have a selection policy that means that any player making himself unavailable for either of the one-day formats rules himself out of consideration for both formats. The selectors will now replace Kevin in both the ODI and the T20 squads," Hugh Morris, then-managing director of the ECB, had said in a statement following Pietersen's announcement.

Commenting on Ben Stokes’ recent retirement from ODIs, Pietersen thus couldn’t help but recall the different treatment he had received for the exact same situation a decade ago.