KEVIN Pietersen has welcomed an “incredible” tweet from his former Hampshire teammate Chris Tremlett.

Tremlett tweeted his support for Pietersen after the controversial ex-England batsman’s autobiography was published this week.

Pietersen’s revelations of bullying in the England dressing room are his way of defending himself at last after years of “character assassination”.

Pietersen’s former teammate Graeme Swann has described the superstar batsman’s autobiography, due to go on general sale tomorrow, as “codswallop” and “the biggest work of fiction since Jules Verne”.

But Tremlett, who has played alongside Pietersen for both Hampshire and Surrey, tweeted: “Glad @KP24 has finally been able to give his side of the story. People can now make an informed opinion of what went on in the dressing room.”

Talking of Tremlett’s social media posting, Pietersen – who played for Hampshire between 2005-2010 – said: “That is an incredible tweet from somebody who was in the dressing room, who saw what was going on – and obviously Swann’s at the centre of this.

“It happened – and I wouldn’t have written this book if I didn’t think it happened.

“I know everything that’s in this book I can stand by 100 per cent.”

After citing Swann, Matt Prior and former coach Andy Flower as central forces in the culture of bullying he says he and others encountered, Pietersen is staying on the front foot.

In a marathon round of broadcast interviews yesterday to publicise his book KP: The Autobiography, the 34-year-old restated his dislike for Prior and his depiction in print of off-spinner Swann as “the one who picked on players” in a “dominant clique” also containing fast bowler Stuart Broad.

There have been many controversies, beginning when Pietersen lost the England captaincy after a disagreement with then coach Peter Moores in 2008-09 and continuing with his three-month exile from the team after a vexed summer of contract wrangles, Twitter parody and leaked text messages to opposition players about his captain Andrew Strauss in 2012.

The culmination, after a period of ‘reintegration’ which allowed him to become England’s all-time record runscorer, came when the ECB ended Pietersen’s employment in February – after which managing director Paul Downton noted the South Africa-born batsman’s ‘disinterest’ in what appears to have been his last Test in Sydney.

Pietersen said: “Since the fall-out of the captaincy, my character has been assassinated on numerous occasions (and) I’ve not been allowed to give my side of the story because of the regime we were under.

“It is pretty important for the public, who’ve been fed by the ECB machine so many things about me, to read this book and go ‘OK, there is another side’.

“It’s a different spin that the ECB machine are putting on me every single day. I’m not buying it.

“As sad as it is, it’s been a battle I’ve been fighting since Flower was coach – so I had to try to defend myself.”