Even if KP wins this battle he can't be captain for long

Jonathan Agnew
6 Jan 2009

Never mind mediator. The first task for Hugh Morris this week is to turn detective and find out what those in and close to England's dressing room really feel about Peter Moores and Kevin Pietersen.

That this row, which seems likely to end in at least one sacking, and perhaps two, should have been sorted out privately goes without saying. But how it started, and who made it public knowledge, is a bit of an irrelevance now compared to discovering whether England's players are behind coach Moores or captain Pietersen.

Until the ECB managing director Morris knows the score on that front, he cannot work out how to proceed.

Is it a case of Pietersen having the whole team behind him, or simply thinking he has them behind him? Or, does this all comes down to Pietersen being on a personal mission?

If Pietersen is acting with the players' support, if they've all had enough of Moores and don't think he is good enough, then probably the captain is doing what has to be done by forcing the issue. But if there is strong backing for the coach then the ECB must look at Pietersen's position.

What no one should want, though, is a situation where the captain is able to stamp his feet and get the coach sacked simply because he would prefer to work alongside someone else. That would be a seriously unhealthy state of affairs and, if allowed to succeed, it would put the ECB in dangerous territory.

Given those circumstances you wonder who, if anybody, would accept the job of coach knowing that a fall-out with KP might lead to the sack.

Only five months have passed since Pietersen was appointed. Yet, because the ECB were determined to make him captain of both Test and one-day teams, despite his almost total lack of experience, he has quickly become all-powerful.

Whatever the outcome this week, I cannot think of Pietersen as a captain for the long haul because we know he tends to do what he wants to do. That's the way he has led his life - making decisions based entirely on what is good for him. That is fair enough and it has helped to create a fine cricketer. But whether it makes him a good captain remains to be seen.

Being in charge doesn't seem to have affected his ability to bat. But we haven't seen anything from him yet as a captain that makes you think he's got anything special.

Last month's Chennai Test was hugely disappointing. England should have won that game but a lack of nous, a lack of strategy and lack of captaincy experience certainly played a part in the defeat.

On top of that, I was hearing strong rumours in India that things were not all sweetness and light in the dressing room. It will be interesting, for example, to see which camp Andrew Flintoff is in over this issue with Moores.

Pietersen does not have a good record of enhancing and building team spirit. Look at his first county, Notts, and the unhappiness that was caused there before he moved to Hampshire. Kevin is a very single-minded fellow - his critics would call him selfish - and he's clearly quite a blinkered individual.

But what of Moores? The ECB rushed into appointing him in 2007 because they wanted to show there was a plan of succession. And that meant someone like Tom Moody, who did a fine job with Sri Lanka, was not even contacted to see if he might be interested in taking over from Duncan Fletcher.

Unlike Moody, Moores had never played international cricket, and while I don't think that is an essential requirement it still leaves you vulnerable. Put it this way, you have to be damn good in other areas.

Moores has quite a clever knack of staying in the background and he talks an awful lot of management gobbledegook. But I haven't seen anything yet from him that has made me think "wow, this guy has got something".

I once had a discussion with him about swing bowling, which was something as a player I knew a bit about while he was a wicketkeeper, but at the end of our chat I thought if that is the way he is talking to somebody like James Anderson then there's going to be a bit of confusion.

You have to look at the lack of development of players like Monty Panesar, Ian Bell and Alastair Cook and ask why they have not kicked on quite as they should have done.

They are all promising players but they have rather stagnated. Is that down to the coach, and the specialists he has appointed, not operating well as a unit?

The imminent tour of West Indies was always going to be crucial for Moores after losing four out of six Test series. But it is virtually impossible now to see both him and Pietersen making that trip as coach and captain.