James Lawton: Pietersen's petulant posturing leaves any idea of Team England in tatters

Whether Kevin Pietersen has the potential to grow into mere competence, let alone statesmanship, as captain of England is not the immediate issue. Nor are his credentials to play cricket, which are abundantly apparent to anyone even vaguely acquainted with the art of batsmanship.

Both matters are surely subordinate to the more pressing question.

It is simply this: on his current form would any self-respecting employer trust him to organise their work's trip without the fear of wholesale foot-stamping and insurrection?

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The most relevant fact as the England Cricket Board attempts to sort out the crisis he has created with ineffable clumsiness and arrogance three weeks before the tour to the West Indies, is that for the immediate future he has surely talked and strutted his way out of the job.

If it is also true that his manoeuvrings to remove coach Peter Moores have at the very least been encouraged – as some impeccable sources attest – by his former captain Michael Vaughan we can only conclude that English cricket's descent from the mountain top of Ashes triumph of 2005 is just about complete.

There may be stories of even greater failures of will and maturity and competitive clarity buried in some other corners of world sport but right now, as the details of internecine warfare spill out one by one, they are quite hard to imagine.

It is also difficult to forget the remarks of the late Bob Woolmer, coach of Pakistan as he prepared his team for a crushing series victory over the conquerors of Australia. At the time England were of course making rather a poor job of shaking off the effects of hubris and much emotional relaxation at Downing Street.

What they were plainly not doing was steeling themselves for the challenge spelt out graphically by the knowing Woolmer, who said: "When you have the kind of victory England have just enjoyed you are naturally on top of the world, but the important thing is how you deal with your success – and what you learn from it. What have England learned? It will be very interesting to see."

Apparently, the evidence has been accumulating at a dismaying rate over the intervening years, it was not an awful lot.

Certainly the most precious of all the lessons of team sport, even one like cricket which puts such a premium on high and consistent individual performance, is the need for unity – a willingness to work together with some intensity in even the most unpromising circumstances.

At the apex of his career as England coach, Duncan Fletcher had achieved this vital quality to an astounding degree. He had made the team think as a unit of shared commitment not individual possibilities and he made clear that this was his ambition in the face of Steve Waugh's triumphant march through England in the previous Ashes series. One sunny morning at Trent Bridge, he declared: "It is a wonderful to see the Australians prepare for a match. Their appetite for the job in front of them is so huge. You see them working so hard, and you think, 'now, that is a team'." When, since Fletcher lost his touch and England became a rabble in the 2006-07 Ashes return, has anyone been tempted to say that of a team who now, and while so near to an important assignment, have a captain who has declared in essence, "It is my way – or no way"?

It may well be true that Moores, for all his achievements in county cricket, has failed to make a satisfying move to the highest level of the game. It may be that in this respect Pietersen's instincts are right. But what does it say about the maturity of his approach to a team situation which he finds less than ideal in every respect? Unfortunately, his statement could not be more explicit. Everything must be, according to his lights, perfect. He must be surrounded by his particular mates – and he must have his every demand satisfied.

His ultimatum has placed the ECB in a hopeless position. Naturally, it values hugely Pietersen's contribution as the team's outstanding performer and a captain of some promise, but what price can they be reasonably required to pay for such assets?

It cannot be the abdication from all responsibility for the shape and conduct of a touring party.

Hardest of all to ignore now is the fact that apart from the brief and shining interlude of Fletcher's success, English cricket has plainly failed to understand the need for real authority in team affairs. The Australian renaissance was not launched by inspired committee work but the conclusion that a team had to be rooted in a set of common values, the kind that can be imposed by a man of former captain Bobby Simpson's experience and imagination. That a captain of Allan Border's on-field presence should emerge so comfortably in tune with the demands laid down by such a leader was of a natural consequence.

England, perhaps a little shamed by the chaos implicit in the fact that in 1988 they tried four captains in the space of one summer, eventually did turn to a man of Ray Illingworth's proven knowledge, but by common consent some of the nuances and style of the modern game had perhaps made him a cricket man of great basic values who had maybe strayed beyond his time.

This is not so, however, with the enduring need for someone to take hold of a team and turn it into something that isn't torn by cliques and an over developed sense of personal value.

In the long run England might well turn to the strong and able Tom Moody, who is currently coaching Western Australia and was favourite to succeed Fletcher before the appointment of Moores. In the meantime the ECB are faced with a judgement that might have taxed Solomon. It is hard to believe they will be so abject as to follow the command of their tyro captain and then send him off to the Caribbean with all the swagger of a successful pirate.

One compromise being mooted last night was the demotion of Pietersen to the ranks, the appointment of the well regarded batting coach Andy Flower in Moores' place, with the captaincy going to the man some have always regarded as the soundest choice, Andrew Strauss.

No doubt any of this would cause great amusement Down Under, where the Aussies were briefly thought to be trembling at the idea of another English summer. Still, better that, than any conclusive evidence that English cricket has finally gone completely mad.

Hughes needs time not money to restore City

Mark Hughes's best hope is that the magnates of Abu Dhabi have now been separated from the eternal football myth that throwing big money at an ailing club is always, or even rarely, the big solution.

The embattled Manchester City manager has certainly found himself in a tight corner with the psychologically ravaging FA Cup defeat by Nottingham Forest. But then his track record with Wales and Blackburn Rovers means that despite the howls from the terraces he can reasonably expect the chance to show over the second half of the season his ability to work with players in whom he believes.

He may well be helped in this if the men from the Gulf also accept that while superstars like Robinho come and go, a club's prime asset will always be the force of character displayed in the manager's office.

Hughes has shown plenty of this in his brief time in the job and the fact that he is sitting on a transfer fortune should not accelerate any rush to judgement on his long-term ability to make the right buys, and impose the right values. This, after all, is a club that has arguably been more spectacularly mis-directed than any other in English football since the days of Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison.

Years of excellent work should not, at least just yet, be lost because in half a season Hughes has so far failed to make a serious football club of Manchester City. Sometimes the job is not so much a reconstruction as a hosing down. Hughes should be allowed at least one full turn of the tap.

Gascoigne deserves to find peace

Whenever the tragedy of Paul Gascoigne is re-visited, as it was harrowingly on Channel 4 last night, it is impossible not to recall the bitter-sweet moment he walked into the lobby of a swish hotel at the top of the Via Veneto after passing his medical with Lazio. He sat at the piano, ordered a glass of champagne and gave a passable rendering of "Happy Days Are Here Again". They weren't of course, and maybe there had always been more pain than joy. Maybe he was hoping for a miracle in a city where they are not unknown. Maybe it is time to pray for perhaps the last one that is available to him – a little peace.