Boycott on cricket in Canary Wharf

He said: “The administrators aren’t interested in quality. They just want as much as they can get.

“TV gives them this money for playing lots of international cricket. That’s all they’re interested in, which is a shame.

“Too much ruins it in the end. Right now we’re going to have too much Twenty20.

“It’s unbalanced. Instead of having some Twenty20, some 50 overs, some tests, we’re just going to get more and more. If you get your favourite meal on a Monday, you don’t want to still be eating it on Friday.�

The danger, according to the man who played 108 test matches between 1965 and 1982, is burn out, especially for man-of-the-moment Pietersen.

He said: “There’s a danger that he’s going to get worn out too quickly, not by his batting or helping the 10 players who play under him. It’s everything else surrounding him. He says his phone never stops ringing.

“At the start of my career we had five test matches in the summer and five in the winter. Occasionally we had a winter off. That’s just 10 test matches, 50 days, but we do 50 days in an English summer now easily.�

The 67-year-old was at Books etc in Jubilee Place on Tuesday with his latest book, Best XI, in which he selects his top all-time teams from test playing nations. He admitted selection was hard.

He said: “Half are easy, because they are iconic figures and I don’t think anyone would argue too much. It’s the other half that are more trying.

“I’m fairly clued up on cricket. I like reading about famous players but to do them justice you really have to get stuck into it.

“You try to be fair to everybody because there are more players you didn’t see than you did.

"There's different eras. Like WG [Grace], who played on awful pitches in low scoring games. His test average is low compared to today but it's better than most in that era.

"So in the era they played how good were they compared to the rest and what did their colleagues think of them? And the opposition? So I tried to study that a bit. Certainly figures are important because it's a yardstick of how good you are but it's not the be-all-and-end-all.

“I rang a couple of players who bowled at Compton and Hutton to ask what it was like. It’s not just about facts and figures.

"The figures are important, but so are the colleagues who played or bowled at them, and what's been written about them by people like Neville Cardus, John Arlott. Then it becomes a judgment.

"I'm sure there's an odd player here or there. It's so difficult I had to stick a pin in and say which one am I going to have."

And there was one criteria for his batsmen Boycott believed was crucial in making his team selections.

He said: "I thought it was important to have the players who played quick bowling well because when you are picking your greatest ever, as anyone who understands cricket knows, whoever's had the fastest bowlers, the really quality fast bowlers, they've been very important in winning test series.

" Right from Bodyline in 1932-33 when we had Larwood, to Typhoon [Frank Tyson] on Hutton's tour of Australia, and [Brian] Statham.

"When the Aussies came here in 1948 they had [Ray] Lindwall, [Keith] Miller and big Bill Johnson. Then later [Dennis] Lillee and [Jeff] Thomson.

"The West Indies quicks when they had Hall and Griffiths, then in the late 1970s and 80s they had a bucketful of them - Holding, Marshall, Garner, Croft. Wow.

"You shook a palm tree and instead of coconuts coming down, it was a blinking fast bowler. Zillions of them.

"When you think of Sylvester Clarke and Wayne Daniel at Surrey and Middlesex, they played 10 and 11 tests. They'd be playing 80 or 100 tests now, each of them. They'd walk into any side.

"There were people like that. The ability, character, and the mental toughness to play fast bowling is absolutely priceless. So you try to isolate their figures, how they played against these fast bowlers of whatever era.

"I know it's a bit different in India and Sri Lanka, you need spinners there, but fast bowlers have done most damage. If you can't play them, you've had it."

None of the current England squad make Boycott’s line-up, but he thinks they have what it takes to regain the Ashes from Australia next summer.

He said: “Two months ago I’d have said we haven’t got a cat in hell’s chance the way we were playing. Freddie Flintoff was unfit while [Steve] Harmison was struggling.

“Flintoff when he’s fit and Harmison bowling straight are both good. We got a big uplift from Pietersen, and if we can keep all that going until next year, we should be ready.

“The main thing is not to wrap the bowlers up in cotton wool. Get them bowling.�

The absence of Australia’s two tormentors-in-chief, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne, will help and Boycott thinks Pietersen won’t let captaincy pressures affect his batting.

He said: “Pietersen’s very much his own man and I think he wants to stay that way. It won’t affect his batting one iota.

“He’s a great player now but he wants to be recognised all his career as a great player.�