New Captain Pietersen Urges England Unity

Kevin Pietersen launched his England captaincy yesterday by making a plea for unity in a dressing room which has seemed divided this summer.

"Peter Moores likes to challenge us," he said of England's coach. "He likes to challenge us on a daily basis. There's a lot of strong characters in the dressing room. Yesterday I sat down with Peter and we had a really good discussion about how we want to take this team forward. We need to unite, we need to get on to the same hymnsheet, we need to get this team going forward. The crux of yesterday's meeting was to determine where Peter and myself can take this team."

Moores and the previous captain, Michael Vaughan, did not appear to enjoy a close working relationship, an impression which emerged in the second Test against South Africa after the selection of Darren Pattinson. After a difficult 15 months in charge Moores, a highly respected and effective coach at county level with Sussex, has yet to convince some senior Test players that his eager "in-your-face" and egalitarian methods are what is required at international level.

Pietersen added: "I'm 100% confident we can have a good working relationship. I wouldn't be sitting here today if I wasn't confident. Everything is going to be perfectly fine."

But if it is not perfectly fine the next casualty will not be the new captain but Moores, who took charge in May 2007 after a spell as the England and Wales Cricket Board's academy director, where he had succeeded Rodney Marsh.

In recent months the England team have not seemed as together as in the early years of Vaughan's reign under the previous coach, Duncan Fletcher. Pietersen said: "To be totally honest the most exciting thing is that I've had text messages and phone calls from the senior players in the squad, who basically said, 'We're right behind you, we support you, give it a shot.'

"Once you've got the support of the lads around you, who are with you the whole time, there's nothing more you can ask for. I hope it won't restrict the way I play. I play the way I play and I've been successful so far. If it doesn't work and it affects a few things in terms of my personal life, if it affects the way I bat and all that, then I will be man enough to say so."

Asked whether his desire to play in the Indian Premier League and his concerns about going to Pakistan for the Champions Trophy in September had been affected by his appointment, he said: "I promise you I haven't given it any thought."

The official ECB line is that there will be a window at the end of next year's tour of the West Indies in which players may take part in the IPL, at the coach's discretion.

The opener Andrew Strauss expressed disappointment about being overlooked for the captaincy. "I was disappointed I wasn't thought of as captain but once the selectors decided they wanted to unify the Test and one-day jobs it was a non-starter for me," he said. "I definitely feel I could have made a decent fist of the Test captaincy and would have benefited from the time I previously did the job. But it was not to be and there is not much I can do about the selectors' decision. There is no point feeling sorry for myself. What I have to do now is get behind Kevin."

Strauss' fellow opener, Alastair Cook, said he would have accepted the job but admitted he might not have been ready. "It crossed my mind for a couple of minutes that I may get the job but I probably am too young," he said.