CRICKET:KEVIN PIETERSEN launched his England captaincy yesterday by making a plea for unity in a dressingroom which has seemed divided this summer.

Less than a year before the start of the 2009 Ashes home series against Australia. Pietersen (28) will lead both the Test and one-day teams after Michael Vaughan resigned from the former post on Sunday and Paul Collingwood relinquished the latter shortly afterwards.

He will be in charge for next year's Twenty20 World Cup in England as part of the latest challenge for an ambitious man who left his native land to qualify for the country where his mother was born.

"Peter Moores (the England coach) likes to challenge us," he said. "He likes to challenge us on a daily basis. There's a lot of strong characters in the dressingroom. There's a lot of opinionated people in the dressingroom. 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 Vaughan did not appear to enjoy a particularly close working relationship, an impression that emerged during the second Test against South Africa at Headingley following the left-field selection of Darren Pattinson. After a difficult 15 months in charge Moores, who was a highly respected and effective coach at county level, 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 per cent 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 isn't perfectly fine - and England remain a moderate side in world terms, whoever leads them - the next casualty will not be the new captain, but Moores, who took charge in May 2007.

In recent months the England team have not seemed as together as they had been in the early years of Vaughan's reign under the previous coach, Duncan Fletcher. Pietersen said: "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 . . . then I will be man enough to say so."

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."

Ominously, Strauss added: "We are going from having the best captain England has ever had to someone who has never done it before. It is hard to say if Kevin will ultimately be successful."

Essex batsman Ravi Bopara will replace Vaughan in the England squad for the fourth Test against South Africa, which starts at the Oval on Thursday.

Guardian Service