Australian coach John Buchanan has questioned Kevin Pietersen's team ethic as revelations have emerged from the England camp of the batting dynamo's reluctance to follow team plans and bat at No.4.
As the fallout continues from England's miserable effort in the fourth Ashes Test, beleaguered coach Duncan Fletcher has revealed he and captain Andrew Flintoff had wanted Pietersen to fill the crucial No.4 position throughout its defence of the urn.
The coach, who has been under siege throughout England's doomed Ashes tour, said Pietersen's reluctance to rise up the order, and his desire to keep his star player happy, were the reasons why England's best batsman had remained at No.5 until midway through the Boxing Day Test.
"We sit with the captain and we make those decisions. We wanted him to bat No.4, as the captain and the coach we wanted him to bat four," Fletcher said on Friday morning, less than 24 hours after his team crashed to an innings-and-99-run defeat, ensuring it would head to Sydney one loss away from an Ashes whitewash.
"He was a little bit reluctant and we wanted to say, like I said in any team anywhere in the world if you man-manage people, it's very wrong to make people play or do things they don't want to do in tight situations so we thought it best on a tour like this, if he wants to bat No.5 and he felt comfortable there, then he bats No.5."
"We've always said we've wanted our best batter to bat No.4. He came on the tour and he felt very comfortable batting No.5 so we discussed it, he was comfortable batting at No.5 and at that time that was the best plan to have him there."
Pietersen's disappointment at having to bat with the tail was the reason behind his rise up the order in Melbourne, Fletcher said, a decision which was supported by regular No.4 Paul Collingwood, who scored a double century in Adelaide, despite it meaning he would be demoted.
"The reason was given is that he suddenly didn't want to be batting with the tail all the time so he thought if he went to four we'd have better batters batting behind him," Fletcher said.
"He said he believed it as well. He appreciates that Kevin is a better batter than him and he even said it. It does seem wrong that he's batting with the tail and we're not using Kevin's full potential."
The heat was turned up even further on Pietersen by Buchanan, who felt the South African-born batsman appeared distant from the rest of the England team out on the field.
"That might be because that's where England want him to field, they want him to field out on the boundary but he's a good fieldsman, somebody that's good around the ring and it surprises me that he's always seems to be distanced from the rest of the group," he said.
"He certainly talks about himself as the team player, I don't personally see any evidence of that. That's from a distance, I'm not in their dressing rooms and he could be one of the greatest team men of all time. That's still a question for you to pose to Pietersen and to English management, not to me."
