MELBOURNE, Jan 10: Kevin Pietersen let England down as he failed to act responsibly but coach Peter Moores was no better and lacked the spark to excel, feels noted Australian cricket columnist Peter Roebuck.

“Kevin Pietersen has let down his adopted country. Given the honour of captaining the England cricket team, he failed to act responsibly,” he said. “Instead, he tried to impose himself, using his power as a match-winning batsman and appointed leader to remove a lackluster coach and install his own staff,” he wrote in his Sydney Morning Herald column.

Roebuck felt Pietersen was impressed by Shane Warne’s approach with the under-dogs Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League “yearned to instill the same freewheeling yet competitive outlook in his players and knew his sincere but unimaginative coach blocked his path”.

“None of these ideas was bad. Pietersen has always sought to surround himself with success. After all, he went to England and moved to Hampshire for that reason, and chose Clive Rice, Warne and Ian Botham as his mentors. His ruthlessness sat beside the sense of destiny and insecurity often detected in these superficially daredevil types.

“Doubtless, he felt England were doomed to a long spell of mediocrity unless attitudes changed off the field. He might be right about that. Peter Moores was a hard-working fellow but lacked the spark needed to excel,” he said.—Agencies