CAS­TRIES–Leg­endary West In­di­an fast bowler Sir Andy Roberts be­lieves the St Lu­cia Zouks stand to gain from Kevin Pietersen's Eng­land omis­sion as he pre­pares to play in the Caribbean Pre­mier League while su­per­star bats­man Chris Gayle says the em­bat­tled mid­dle or­der bats­man should be rep­re­sent­ing Eng­land in all forms of the game.

Pietersen had been hop­ing for an in­ter­na­tion­al re­call af­ter last be­ing se­lect­ed for Eng­land dur­ing the 2013-14 Ash­es Tour in Aus­tralia.

How­ev­er, his prospects of a come-back on the Eng­lish team suf­fered a set­back when new di­rec­tor of crick­et An­drew Strauss told him he would not play for Eng­land again this sum­mer.

"Once Kevin Pietersen comes to St Lu­cia Zouks and pre­pares to play his part, I don't think he'll have a prob­lem with any­body," said Roberts.

"He didn't have any prob­lems with any of us last year when he came for two match­es. I found he helped and he looked to help some of the young­sters. They had a few con­ver­sa­tions with him and some have seen wis­dom in what he's said."

Pietersen will rep­re­sent the Zouks for the sec­ond time af­ter turn­ing out for St Lu­cia in the lat­ter stages of the Caribbean's Twen­ty20 com­pe­ti­tion last year.

Gayle has added his voice to de­bate on the con­tro­ver­sial Eng­lish bats­man who was sacked by the Eng­land and Wales Crick­et Board af­ter last year's white­wash Ash­es de­feat in Aus­tralia.

The record-break­ing bats­man was hop­ing for a re­call to the Eng­land side af­ter ap­par­ent pre-sea­son en­cour­age­ment from new ECB chair­man Col­in Graves.

But even af­ter his maid­en triple-cen­tu­ry for Sur­rey on Mon­day, he was in­formed with­in hours by Eng­land di­rec­tor of crick­et An­drew Strauss that there is no im­mi­nent prospect of him play­ing for Eng­land again.

"He should be play­ing for Eng­land, there are no two ways about it," said Gayle.

"They (the ECB) must have their rea­sons but we would love to see your best play­er in ac­tion, out in the mid­dle, en­ter­tain­ing. It doesn't mat­ter what for­mat � Test, 50-over, Twen­ty20 � he's a class play­er".

Strauss was Pietersen's Test cap­tain in 2012, when he dis­cov­ered the bats­man had sent "provoca­tive" texts about him to op­po­si­tion play­ers from their na­tive South Africa.

Strauss has con­firmed that Pietersen is "not part of our plans" for the Ash­es sum­mer cit­ing a "mas­sive trust is­sue" be­tween him­self and the 34-year-old crick­eter.

"One of the best play­ers Eng­land has ever pro­duced. But it's your loss. KP is look­ing for­ward to the CPL. Eng­land don't want him? We will take him," said Gayle who took his tal­ly in three NatWest T20 Blast in­nings to 328 as Som­er­set de­feat­ed Hamp­shire by eight wick­ets last Fri­day. "He (Pietersen) will en­ter­tain the fans. We will make some sales off him, sell some tick­ets. It should be fan­tas­tic. The CPL is go­ing to be one big par­ty." (cmc)