County form to determine Pietersen's England future: Stewart

Former England captain Alec Stewart believes that sacked but "run-hungry" batsman Kevin Pietersen could get a call back to the national side if he is at his best at the county cricket level.

Pietersen, 34, has rejoined Surrey for the 2015 season in a bid to return to the national side afer being unceremoniously sacked by the England and the Wales Cricket Borad (ECB) in February 2014 for involving in repeated confrontations with teammates and coaches.

National selector James Whittaker recently said he was "not part of our plans".

"We've signed Pietersen because he is run-hungry, if he can come back into our side and score heavily, he will ask questions of the selectors, the former England captain, now director of Surrey cricket was quoted as saying by bbc.com on Tuesday.

On the aftermath of England's 0-5 Ashes whitewash in Australia, ECB managing director Paul Downton had said the decision to sack Pietersen was taken because he was "disengaged" and "disconnected" from the team.

But Stewart said the 34-year-old has the potential to make the team again and believes he will be desperate to score runs.

"He's been as good as gold with us," he said.

"If he was a bad character, we wouldn't have had him. We hope he will be exactly the same this time, if not even more hard-working and desperate to score runs."

"Clearly if England do well against the West Indies, as we expect, then it will take an injury or a huge loss of form for a vacancy to become available, but all Kevin has said is that he's going to score runs, and then he will sit back and see what happens," he said.