Now that the bulldozer of Kevin Pietersen’s ego has been stopped in its tracks, Andrew Strauss will want to view what he has inherited not as a pile of psychological rubble but as a building site with inviting potential for a rapid reconstruction project. England’s new cricket captain has mixed optimism with characteristic common sense in his first statements about the restoration of dressing-room morale that is, unavoidably, his immediate priority.

There is nothing surprising in his declaration that he regards himself as the right man to take over the Test captaincy in the wake of Pietersen’s brief tenure and acrimonious relinquishing of the role. Strauss could hardly say he felt he was a questionable choice. But the quiet conviction of his words reminded us that a sportsman’s self-belief can be powerful without ravaging the reputations and sensitivities of fellow professionals.

If he seems fairly sanguine, it is probably because he is resistant to the widespread tendency to suggest the shameful chaos that has been engulfing the affairs of the England cricket squad is bound to have a direly momentous impact on their competitive fortunes. One instantly obvious difficulty with such an interpretation is that those fortunes weren’t exactly marvellous before the sacking of the national coach, Peter Moores, coincided with the enforced resignation of Pietersen in the culmination of the feud the player was presumptuously convinced would leave him popularly triumphant.

Since the Brit Oval resounded to the glorious clinching of Ashes victory over Australia in the summer of 2005, England have become habitual strugglers when encountering nations highly rated in the game, with the 5-0 humiliation in the next Ashes contest particularly emphasising (injuries notwithstanding) how miserably they had failed to develop the strengths shown against their fiercest rivals two years previously. The only wins in the 18 months that Moores was in charge came at the expense of lower-ranked opponents. And the recent gaining of a creditable draw with India, after having suffered annihilation in a one-day series and defeat in the first of two Tests, scarcely provided grounds for assuming the future was rosy prior to the abrupt, disruptive removal of Pietersen and Moores.

Perhaps more plausible as an indirect source of encouragement was the evidence that Australia, so long world cricket’s dominant force, were in marked decline and might be vulnerable when they come to England later this year. However, schaden-freude can be sour and unreliable nourishment and while the English were grossly embarrassing themselves last week with the consequences of their toxic internal disputes, the Australians were rescuing a measure of pride in Sydney by giving their losing series against South Africa the upbeat ending of a final-Test victory, further reducing the already slender likelihood that they will be pessimistic visitors in the summer.

What happened with England in the past few days certainly amounted to self-destructive farce and condemned the national governing body, the ECB, for lack of foresight in rushing through the appointments of Pietersen and Moores to suc-c e e d M i c h a e l Vaughan and Duncan Fletcher and for then failing to react promptly and decisively to t h e b l a t a n t incompatibility of their coach and a captain who apparently thought his genius at the batting crease gave him the right to dictatorial influence. But many of the assessments of the long-term damage done reek of exaggeration.

Strauss, as somebody who has been involved at Test level long enough to have scored 14 centuries, would know plenty about the rifts and interpersonal resentments within the squad long before they were dramatically underlined by the absence of player support for Pietersen’s position that doomed his captaincy and must have left him shell-shocked.

Though Strauss also knows such divisions are all but inevitable in team sports, and especially in cricket, where players are frequently obliged to live as a group rather than merely play together, he will accept that the problem could reach worrying proportions among England’s current personnel - not least because the two outstanding talents, Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff, have a distinctly uncosy relationship. Yet the newly installed leader is entitled to believe he can effectively coordinate the abilities at his disposal. And if self-interest has been a major contributor to the troubles, it offers the best hope of coping with them.

Establishing altruistic harmony in his dressing room is plainly an impractical target for Strauss. The aim will be to create a pragmatic unity of purpose based on recognition of the bleedin’ obvious: that each man’s chances of performing to the maximum will be improved if everybody else in the team strains to the utmost in assisting him towards that objective. Surely even Pietersen, whose behaviour often indicates that his opinion of himself couldn’t be accommodated in a hangar, cannot be impervious to that reality. Whatever else he is, the transplanted South African is dedicated to doing justice to his wondrous gifts and it is that seam of iron-hard ambition Strauss should be able to tap as he seeks to lift his most dangerous batsman clear of the gloom, and suspicions of betrayal, presumably enveloping him after last week’s jolting experiences.

In spite of Pietersen’s assurances that he will be a wholehearted servant of the England cause on the imminent tour to the West Indies and subsequently in the challenge for the Ashes, some fear he may be sufficiently alienated to decide along the way that he should head for the plunder-laden fields of the Indian Premier League. That must be a real possibility, but there is the impression financial rewards alone wouldn’t satisfy him. He has a voracious craving for glory, too, and the corollary of needing his prominence with England to feed that hunger is needing the context only committed teammates can provide. Focusing Pietersen’s mind for the collective good shouldn’t be beyond Strauss.

However demanding Strauss may find the task of gelling Pietersen, Flintoff and any other awkward cases into a coherent, successful unit, he won’t see the process as anything more than a basic part of the duties of a captain. Past holders of the job have had to deal with rawer hostilities, sometimes with physical aggression directed at themselves.

Andrew Strauss’s regime will probably be punctuated by the occasional heated squabble but we shouldn’t worry overmuch unless we hear of batting helmets being worn in the bar.

A glitch on the radar

In the minds of some romantics, neither Manchester City’s tribulations in the Premier League nor the difficulties they seem to have in recruiting players of their choice from other English clubs can threaten the wild notion that the wealth of their Arab owners will ultimately make them irresistible to the world’s greatest footballers. The most entertaining journalistic device for sustaining this simplistic projection is the suggestion that such as Lionel Messi and Kaka are still ‘very much on City’s radar’. Theirs appears to be the only example of radar that comes complete with a vivid imagination.

Combative Benitez in line for test of stamina

IT IS too easy to dismiss the tirade Rafael Benitez aimed at Sir Alex Ferguson on Friday as a confession from the Liverpool manager that he has allowed himself to be damagingly rattled by the master of Old Trafford. Comparisons to the tearful outburst with which Kevin Keegan responded to Ferguson’s calculatedly provocative utterances towards the climax of the 1995-6 season - foreshadowing the total implosion of a Newcastle United challenge for the Premier League title that had shortly before seemed unstoppable - are more notable for glibness than for sense.

Keegan’s rant exposed him mercilessly as a man reduced to emotional tatters by the ordeal of trying to hold out against Manchester United’s late charge and the Glaswegian commentary that accompanied it. There was no such spluttering vulnerability apparent in Benitez two days ago. As he read from a list he blithely described as factual, giving new meaning to the term bullet points, what he communicated was cold, controlled anger. Its specific trigger was his rival’s taunting suggestion that nearly two decades without a national championship had left Liverpool seriously ill-equipped to maintain their present lead in the Premier League. But Benitez spread his fire to include allegations that Ferguson and his staff invariably put match officials under pressure (he warned Chelsea to be alert in the highly significant collision at Old Trafford today), claims that the Scot escapes due punishment for disrespecting referees, and the sneering suggestion that Ferguson’s complaints about this season’s fixture schedule should be answered with an agreement to let him map out the programme in future and simply circulate it to the other clubs.

There is validity in the contention that the best way to deal with the United manager’s psychological ploys is to refuse to be roused by them, to opt for cool and preferably humorous ripostes as favoured by Jose Mourinho. But Benitez has always struck me as having a deep combative streak and his decision to take the verbal offensive doesn’t surprise me. He may be intent on encouraging the kind of siege mentality among his troops that has often paid off for Ferguson. But what Rafa must remember is that as a player of so-called mind games Sir Alex’s strength is stamina more than subtlety.