Kevin Pietersen has hailed comments from the incoming chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board suggesting an international return for the outspoken cricketer was possible if he pressed his case with county cricket runs.
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Colin Graves, who will succeed Giles Clarke as ECB chairman in May, had already been praised by Pietersen as a "top drawer" administrator for his willingness to follow India and Australia in introducing a franchise-based domestic Twenty20 competition, of which Pietersen is a strong advocate.
Pietersen's exclusion from selection consideration for England remains a contentious issue 13 months after it occurred, mainly because the veteran has repeatedly declared his wish to return to the team.
When Graves, currently the chairman of English county Yorkshire, was asked about the issue on the weekend he indicated a return for Pietersen was possible.
"The first thing he has to do if he wants to get back is start playing county cricket. The selectors and the coaches are not going to pick him if he's not playing, it's as simple as that. I'll leave it at that," Graves told BBC radio.
"At the end of the day it's down to the selectors and coaches and what they feel is best for English cricket. They will make the decisions and I will support their decisions."
Graves also pointed out, in an interview with London's Daily Telegraph, that he had been deputy chairman when the decision was made to banish Pietersen.
"I supported it so there is no point pulling that to bits. But if he wants to play for England then he has to play for a county. That is his decision," Graves said.
"If he does that and then comes out and scores a lot of runs they [selectors] can't ignore him I would have thought, but that is up to him. You can't pick someone when he is not playing."
Graves indicated he believed selectors were above letting personal non-cricket views of players affect their decisions.
"Forget personalities. Selectors pick the best players in form, taking wickets and scoring runs. That is their job," he told the Telegraph.
Axing Pietersen was one of the first acts of ECB cricket chief Paul Downton, in consultation primarily with chief selector James Whitaker and then coach Andy Flower. Flower has since been replaced by Peter Moores, with whom he clashed badly with during their short stint together as captain and coach in 2008.
Graves' deference to selectors and coaches, "and what they feel is best for English cricket", could make his willingness to consider a return for Pietersen of little significance. Nevertheless, the destructive right-hander said he was buoyed by the comments.
"The previous chat [with ECB officials] was clearly that I had been banned from playing for England and that I'd never play again, which for me was incredibly sad because I do feel that my England career was cut short and taken away from me. It's come as a pleasant surprise but one that I'll need to think through," he told UK television station Sky Sports on the weekend.
"It's only happened in the last three or four hours ... I'm certainly not going to hassle Colin on a Sunday, but I'll definitely want to speak to the ECB.
"Let's just be clear: I'd love to play for England again."
"If it is genuine, which I'm sure it is ... goodness, I would love to be given that opportunity again. I will need to go away and make some decisions, I need to speak to a few people ... I'll have to go away now and see where my future lies, but this is really, really encouraging."
Pietersen has not played county cricket since June 2013, and not played any first-class matches since the Sydney Ashes Test in January 2014.
To find a new county, and satisfy the ECB, he would almost certainly have to curtail or even cull his IPL duties with Hyderabad, the team that last month purchased him for an annual fee of 20 million rupees ($415,000), because of the overlap between the IPL and county seasons. Pietersen was coy on his willingness to do so.
"I can't say that I'm going to be giving away any contracts right here on a Sunday when I haven't spoken to anybody," he said.
"This is not about money, this is about playing cricket for England, doing something that I love ... it's a decision which would purely be on the basis of 'Do I want to play cricket for England? Is this a genuine situation where if I could, if I score runs for potentially Surrey, play for England again?'. It's decisions like that I'm going to have to make this week."
