Pietersen's insecurity has led to his downfall

The Pietersen saga has put the batsman in a negative light and eventually led to his omission from the England squad. Former England captain Mike Brearley, writing in the Guardian, analyses his character to conclude he was not "malicious" but "insecure", something that has let him down.

Sometimes the impasse results from bad chemistry, each party to the conflict getting under the other's skin, pressing, as we say, the other's buttons, so that tiny pinpricks, as in domestic disputes and breakdowns, become infected wounds, even bones of contention.

Misjudgment seems to me to be one of Pietersen's main failings. My impression is that he is an insecure and divided person. I do not think he is malicious or in a deliberate way destructive. I imagine that his mood switches from high to low, so that he is liable either to be over the top, regarding himself as above reproach, untouchable, able to get away with anything, or else to be low, from which position he feels the need to build himself up, to excite himself by provoking responses, even negative ones.