Joe Root (right) and Kevin Pietersen in 2013. Joe Root said the England team is "very different" to the one Kevin Pietersen was sacked from in 2014 after the former batter joined the coaching staff of the white-ball side. Captain Root is the only remaining England Test player to have been in the same team as Pietersen and was on the Ashes tour of 2013-14 that signalled the end of the 46-year-old's international career.

On Monday it was announced that Pietersen will join the white-ball team as a mentor in the build-up to the 2027 World Cup in South Africa, the country of his birth. "I'm fortunate enough to be in that position where I did play alongside him," Root told BBC Sport. "A lot of the guys will have watched him and got into the game because of him. It will be great for those guys to have the opportunity to work alongside him."

Pietersen is one of the finest batters to ever play for England, known for his innovative strokeplay and ability to dismantle opposition bowling attacks. His style of play across a 10-year international career was ahead of its time, much more in keeping with the batting now commonplace in modern white-ball cricket. But 'KP' could often be a divisive figure. In 2012, he was dropped by England over allegations he sent derogatory text messages about then captain Andrew Strauss to the South Africa team. Pietersen was reintegrated into the England team under Strauss' successor Alastair Cook. Cook's England fell apart during the 5-0 Ashes humiliation in 2013-14, after which Pietersen was dropped. In 2015, Strauss, in his role as England director of cricket, said Pietersen would not be recalled because of a "trust issue".

Root, who played 12 Tests and nine one-day internationals alongside Pietersen, said the former Nottinghamshire, Hampshire and Surrey batter is not afraid to speak his mind. "That's him as a person," said Root. "When you get someone involved you want them to be themselves and you want them to come into an environment for a reason. With his experience and knowledge about the game, and all that he can offer, I think he's going to be great. You're looking at so many hypothetical things that could go wrong, when there are so many amazing things he will bring to that environment. The world is a very different place to what it was in 2014, and the England team is in a very different place to that as well."

Only Root and Cook have scored more than Pietersen's 13,779 international runs for England. Pietersen will join Brendon McCullum's staff for the white-ball series against Sri Lanka next week, and Root highlighted the work the pair did together when the Yorkshireman was a young player. "He was always someone who gave me a huge amount, to be honest," said Root, who made his England debut as a 21-year-old in 2012. "He didn't need to offer as much as he did to me, but he would sit there and work tirelessly, making sure I felt comfortable with my own game. He listened to all my questions and helped as much as he could. As a senior player, he was outstanding."

Root will lead England in the third and final Test against Pakistan on Wednesday, with the home side looking for a 3-0 clean sweep in the 35-year-old's first series since returning as captain. As with the previous two Tests, Root declined to confirm his XI ahead of the toss, though the home side are expected to be unchanged.

Since England won the second Test at Lord's, a debate has arisen about ticket prices for the home Ashes next summer. At Edgbaston, the venue for this week's Test, Ashes tickets for the famous Hollies Stand are priced at £165 up from £125 in the same stand for the series against Australia in 2023. "I don't know what it takes to run a county or run a venue, I don't know what goes into that," said Root. "From a playing point of view and as a captain, you want the grounds to be full, and you want them to be full of every demographic of person. You want the game to feel like it is for everyone, that they can come to support you and enjoy that. I don't really know what more to say on it, to be honest. It would be great to see this place full and thriving, and for everyone to have the opportunity to come to watch Test cricket."

Under Root's predecessor Ben Stokes, England developed a habit of starting Test series well but ending them poorly. England have lost the final Test in their past six consecutive multi-match series. Root admitted only a win in Birmingham changes that record, and also had a strong defence of Stokes and former Test coach McCullum. "We wouldn't have been able to play these last two games without all of the work those two did," he said. "I think it's undervalued the impact what those two guys had on English cricket. You look at where we were and how we played our cricket, you look at how we've been able to perform in the last two games, a lot of that is down to the hard work and the way they changed the mentality within English cricket and this team. I'm not going to sit here and have comparisons thrown against those two, I don't think that's fair whatsoever. They deserve a lot of credit for the last two performances."

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