Virtually admitting that his relationship with coach Peter Moores has broken down, England captain Kevin Pietersen said the dressing room atmosphere is far from healthy and the ECB should put the house in order at the earliest.

“Obviously this situation is not healthy, we have to make sure it is settled as soon as possible and certainly before we fly off to the West Indies,” the England captain told The News of the World.

“Everything has to be hunky dory, everybody has to have the same aims and pull in the same direction for the good of the England team,” added Pietersen, who prepares to return from holiday in South Africa and meet England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) managing director Hugh Morris who has been entrusted with the job of brokering peace.

Morris has already met Moores but the England coach is believed to be on his way out after losing the captain’s trust. “There is no way Pietersen and Moores can work together, they’re just too far apart,” a ‘dressing-room source’ said. “The ECB are caught in the middle of this and are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.”

The notion that Pietersen and Moores fell out after Michael Vaughan was ignored for the West Indies tour by the four-member selection panel (of which Moores is a key member) has also been dumped, instead it was the recent Chennai Test that made the spilt wide open. According to sources, Pietersen felt Moores didn’t provide enough inputs that led to England’s failure to defend 387 in the fourth innings of the Test.

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