Pietersen era excites Moores

England's new captain was due to practise with his team for the first time in the build-up to Thursday's final npower Test against South Africa, but was instead restricted to addressing the team for the first time during a pre-Test meeting as showers enveloped the Oval.

It was his first day in charge since the dramatic events of Sunday, which saw Michael Vaughan resign as Test captain and Paul Collingwood follow suit, and Moores said: "He'll be different to Michael because he's a different man. Michael had his style and that was very successful. Kevin will bring Kevin Pietersen, which is crucial. He'll be his own man and that's going to be really important."

He added: "What's really promising is that the senior arm of the team is going to get behind him. We'll start on Thursday but we've got a lot of cricket coming up to Christmas, so it's an exciting time."

Moores' most important task since the upheaval of the weekend has been to sort out his differences with Pietersen, which he achieved by arranging a meeting with the new captain at a Northampton hotel on Sunday.

It was widely thought Pietersen set up the meeting on Sunday to thrash out common ground for their partnership, but Moores revealed how he instigated their showdown.

"One of the first things I wanted to do when we were going to offer him the captaincy was to sit down with him and talk to him about where he was coming from and what were his views about where he wanted the side to go and whether they matched with mine," confirmed Moores.

"We sat down and talked for a good hour or so and by the end of it we both felt very confident that we were coming from the same place, which was exciting, so I drove away quite buoyant and excited about what the future might hold.

"What I like about Kevin is he's got a view. That's going to be important in his captaincy. He's passionate. He's committed about the way he goes about his cricket.

"He's positive and he's prepared to work extremely hard to get what he wants from the game."