Trouble at the top

Kevin Pietersen and Peter Moores have had a very public falling out, which looks like it will cost both their jobs at the helm of English cricket. We look at XI other high-profile dust-ups.

Duncan Fletcher and Andrew Flintoff
The 2006-07 tour of Australia that went from bad to worse as the Ashes were conceded 5-0 highlighted that for all Flintoff's brilliance on the field he never saw eye to eye with Fletcher's methods. The coach wasn't enamoured of Flintoff's approach off the field, while there was confusion over selection. It came to a head after the debacle in Adelaide, when Fletcher refused to take the blame for team selection, saying he wasn't the only one involved. From that moment on, the partnership was destined to fail and Flintoff's drunken antics in St Lucia during the World Cup were the final straw.

Mike Atherton and Ray Illingworth
If anything, they were like two peas in a pod. Both stubborn, awkward and controversial, they clashed like opposing magnets; the age-gap was too great. Illingworth, the supremo of English cricket, made use of the media much more than Atherton liked, as revealed in Atherton's autobiography. "I don't care what's said within four walls of the dressing room or selection meeting but that's where it must begin and end. It should not finish up on the back pages of the tabloids… it seemed to me he [Illingworth] got led up the garden path on occasion." Their relationship was built on begrudging respect, but it reached a low point during the 1996 World Cup when Atherton was denied the services of Alec Stewart as wicketkeeper, Illingworth opting for Jack Russell.

Michael Vaughan and Peter Moores
A precursor to the current mess England find themselves in. Vaughan never managed to form the bond with Moores he managed with Fletcher. The tour of New Zealand in early 2008 was when, in hindsight, the cracks really started to emerge, as the players grumbled over the excessive training regime and England were humiliated in the first Test, in Hamilton. They managed to fight back and take the series, but Vaughan later revealed it was when thoughts of resigning had first entered his mind. The duo soldiered on through most of the England Test summer, but the end looked near well before Vaughan resigned following defeat against South Africa.

Sourav Ganguly and Greg Chappell
A once-beautiful friendship which descended into an almighty spat. Ganguly even recommended Chappell to be India's coach, so highly did he rate him, but it didn't take long before the squabbles started, after Chappell stirred an already simmering pot with the suggestion that he'd pick Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif over India's favourite son, in September 2005. Ganguly threatened to walk out but found "extra determination" to crack 101 against Zimbabwe; a few days later Chappell dismissed as "bullshit" rumours that he himself had threatened to resign. Their relationship reached a nasty nadir with the publication of a private email by Chappell, in which he questioned "the rumour-mongering and deceit that is Sourav's modus operandi of divide and rule". Chappell managed to hang on to his job until April 2007.

Ray Jennings and Graeme Smith (and Andre Nel, and...)
Jennings' coaching methods were at times mercurial, at others macabre. And in these modern touchy-feely times, his style often rubbed players up the wrong way - or floored them entirely, such as when he concussed his captain, Smith, during a warm-up "session". Boeta Dippenaar had also been knocked out by one of Jennings' meteors a couple of months beforehand. Famously Jennings - at the time the coach of Easterns - once ordered Andre Nel to knock out Allan Donald with a barrage of bouncers. Jennings escaped punishment, claiming he might have said it, but if he did it was only a joke. Nel, though, was embarrassed and ashamed, having idolised Donald - who was in his pomp at the time - for most of his life. Jennings departed in May 2005, to be replaced by Mickey Arthur, the current incumbent, who has just achieved his dream of South Africa "ultimately [becoming] the best in the world".

Ian Botham and Alec Bedser
Of course, the summer of 1981 ended as Botham's finest hour, but it could so easily have been a very different story. Beginning the Ashes series as captain, he lost the first Test at Trent Bridge and bagged a pair in a draw at Lord's. As Botham prepared to resign at the end of the Test, the selectors delivered the blow in any case. The timing is disputed, but what is not is that had he not resigned, he would have been sacked. Bedser, the chairman of selection, later claimed Botham asked to be allowed to say he had quit, and while he agreed, he warned him that the press would not necessarily believe that line. Asked a direct question minutes later, Bedser merely confirmed that either way, Botham would have gone. "We saw a dream fading," he said, "and our plans falling apart."

Shane Warne and John Buchanan
Not a dispute involving a captain, but not far off, as Warne was a leading figure in any team he played for. Unsurprisingly he was never a fan of coaches, once saying the only coach a team needed was the one to take them to the ground. Although Australia under Buchanan's charge became almost unbeatable, Warne, who remained something of a rogue in the set-up, was allowed leeway because of his standing. He was particularly irked by the boot-camp training before the 2006-07 Ashes, claiming that Buchanan "over-complicates issues" and sometimes "lacked a little bit of common sense". However, when it came to the action, Warne again led from the front in Australia's all-conquering whitewash.

Bishan Bedi and Mohammad Azharuddin
Two towering figures of Indian cricket, but they rarely saw eye to eye. Back in 1990, at Lord's, Bedi had urged Azharuddin to bat first so India could bowl in the fourth innings. But Azharuddin sent England in and his opposite number, Graham Gooch, carved one of the finest innings on English soil. Gooch's 333, then the sixth-highest Test score in history, led to England's huge 653 for 4 and was followed by eight wickets from Angus Fraser as India slumped to a 247-run defeat. Bedi never forgave Azhar. Years later, after resigning, he said, "Azharuddin is neither a captain nor a motivator" and "nobody in the team talks to him, nor does he talk to anyone except when it is essential on the field".

Kevin Pietersen and Mick Newell
It was a surprise to hear support for Pietersen coming from Newell, the director of cricket at Nottinghamshire, because he'd been in charge when Pietersen had another very public falling out. Pietersen asked to be released from his contract but was forced to play out the final year of his deal before joining Hampshire, and didn't enjoy the new regime under Newell - who had replaced Clive Rice, a man Pietersen respected - and Jason Gallian. There was the story of Pietersen's kit-bag being hurled out of the dressing room. "It was one cricket bat but it's been well documented that everything went out of the window," Gallian told the Independent. "Probably my dummy as well."

Ed Smith and Kent
Dressing-room tensions can grow quickly once bad feeling begins to spread. In 2003, Smith was handed the Kent captaincy when David Fulton was injured, but some of Smith's comments in his diary didn't go down too well inside the dressing room. Later in the season Andrew Symonds was handed the leadership and left Smith out of the side, and from there the relationship went down hill. "What's happened has happened and some people did some things wrong," Smith told the BBC in 2004. He soon left the club for pastures new at Middlesex, but that wasn't always a smooth ride either.

Percy Sonn and Graeme Pollock All seems hunky dory in South African cricket these days, following their tremendous series win in Australia. Six years ago, however, the dreaded quota system was threatening to tear the game apart. The late Percy Sonn, who at the time was the UCB president, insisted in 2002 that the selectors pick a black player, Justin Ontong, over Jacques Rudolph, who is white. Pollock was enraged at the decision. "In some ways, picking a player for political reasons can be seen as a slight on the guy himself," he said at the time. Sonn fired back: "Graeme Pollock has got two choices. Either he complies with the decision and keeps his unhappiness to himself, or he will face the voracity of the UCB structures." Pollock was later disciplined by the UCB, but Sonn was treated with increasing wariness by players and management alike. He was elevated to the presidency of the ICC, and died in 2007, shortly after the World Cup.