England axe hanging over coach Moores

A rift has developed between Peter Moores, left, and England captain Kevin Pietersen.


Hugh Morris, the managing director of the England cricket team, will spend the weekend deciding whether to sack the coach, Peter Moores, and is likely to cancel a holiday scheduled for next week if he fails to reach a conclusion.

Morris must choose due to a rift between the coach and Kevin Pietersen, the captain, who feels that Moores is out of his depth and the relationship between the two is damaged beyond repair.

The decision will be the most difficult of Morris's professional life as Moores is one of his closest friends in the game. The friendship goes back to when they played for the England Schools Under-19 side in 1981. Morris was one of Moores' strongest backers when the former Sussex coach replaced Duncan Fletcher in April 2007.

Giles Clarke, the England and Wales Cricket Board chairman, said yesterday: "All team matters are dealt with by Hugh Morris. There will be a full review of the tour of India, which was a difficult tour in view of what happened before it. I don't believe all this stuff I'm reading about Michael Vaughan."

That was a reference to reports that ­Pietersen is threatening to quit over Vaughan's exclusion from the England squad to tour West Indies this month. Pietersen did want Vaughan in and Moores did not, but a source close to the ECB said last night: "The Vaughan issue is something of a red herring. The problem goes back further than that."

The crux of the problem is that the England captain is bright enough to realise he is not quite bright enough, at least where the tactical nuances that made Vaughan such a fine captain are concerned.

Pietersen has not been taken by Moores' boot-camp philosophy and, like Vaughan before him, feels that Moores, a county player who never got near Tests, is not up to it. Moores has lost four of his seven Test series and the likes of Monty Panesar have not progressed. Moores, Pietersen and Morris were unavailable for comment.