As the dust settles on a week bizarre even by the standards of English cricket, we must ask ourselves what it is that Kevin Pietersen has done wrong. After all, he has been effectively sacked as England captain and you normally have to do something pretty bad for that, such as being caught trouserless with a barmaid, or swiping off the bails in a fit of the sulks, or losing an awful lot of matches.

But Pietersen has been sober, continent and otherwise well behaved. He won a Test match and four one-day internationals against South Africa. In India, he lost five successive one-day matches, which was disappointing but not a sacking offence. He then took England back to India after the Mumbai atrocities and this was widely seen as a triumph of moral leadership.

They did pretty well in the two Tests as well, making a good fist of things despite the intimidating circumstances and inadequate preparation. By the time England went into the break between the trips to India and the West Indies, Pietersen was widely seen as a Good Thing.

So what went wrong? It seems that people simply decided that, after all, Pietersen was the wrong sort of chap.

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Why? He expressed reservations about the coaching staff, but many a captain does that. Not everyone in the team was crazy about him, but show me a captain loved by all and I'll show you the Tewin Irregulars.

Pietersen just went about things the wrong way. He complained about the head coach in a manner that wasn't quite right. He was unfamiliar with the local code and, well, I'm afraid we don't do things like that here, old boy. It seems that Pietersen has gone because he doesn't fit in, because he is very keen on his own way and because he is a bit of a maverick.

In other words, Pietersen has been dismissed for being a South African egomaniac. This is not news. In fact, it is even possible that the ECB noticed that Pietersen was a South African egomaniac when it appointed him. So if it didn't want a South African egomaniac as captain of the England team, why did it install him?

The only logical answer is that it thought that when he was made captain, he would turn into someone else - that if it made him captain, he would at once stop being South African, stop being an egomaniac and miraculously turn into Colin Cowdrey.

It is shocking to relate that this did not happen. What did happen was that the ECB appointed a difficult man, in the full knowledge that he is a difficult man, and then got rid of him the first time he did anything difficult. You appoint a maverick and then you're amazed when he does something unusual. You appoint a foreigner and then you're amazed when he behaves in a foreign way. You appoint a man that people have strong views about and then you're amazed when he divides opinions.

What next? It will appoint a dog and sack him for going woof.

Horse sense

Perhaps this won't come as a surprise, but I can tell you that nine out of ten horsey women would sooner spend time with their horses than their husbands. This was the result of a poll carried out by trotontv.com, a new social networking site. And while some see this as an admission of inadequacy from the women, others see it as a demonstration of the inadequacy of the husbands.

According to the survey, the women see their horses as “a friend who helps them to understand ... about patience and freedom”. They add that when riding, they feel “connected, fulfilled and exhilarated” and, furthermore, it is the time when they are “least likely to feel vulnerable”. But are we really talking about the shortcomings of men - or are we talking about the truly remarkable relationship between humans and horses? I refrain from comment, adding only, as a horseman myself, the certainty that anyone who shares a life with horses has a life profoundly enriched.

Andy Murray favourite? You bet

The Australian Open begins a week today and those who follow British tennis are all of a dither about Andy Murray. It really is a possibility that he could become the first British male to win a grand-slam singles title since 1936, a prospect so vast, so crazy, so surreal that we dare not speak its name.

But that sort of breathless hope doesn't cut it at the bookies. If you go down to the local betting shop to place your fiver, you are likely to find that Murray has been installed as unabashed favourite. William Hill make him 2-1, the first time a Briton has been favourite for a grand-slam title since - yes, Fred Perry in 1936.

He's 7-2 to win Wimbledon, 11-10 to win any grand-slam tournament this year and 125-1 to win all four. And so, as betting men dive in to grab the odds on a first-round exit (12-1), those of us who have been following British tennis for too long watch, boggling and unbelieving. Life was never supposed to be like this.

Send in the clowns

It seems that Rafael Benítez, the Liverpool manager, lacks a Sergeant Wilson, of Dad's Army fame, on his staff, one to ask him: “Do you think that's wise, sir?”

Benítez went for an intemperate attack on Sir Alex Ferguson because, apparently, the Manchester United manager is “nervous and scared” and beyond the reach of the law. The main issue is not whether the substance of his attack is right. Ferguson intimidates everyone in British football; he is the Michael Schumacher of the Barclays Premier League and United are Ferrari; that's the way it's been since the Premier League began.

No, it was the impropriety of saying these inconvenient truths out loud that disturbed everyone. You are supposed to accept secondary status to the prancing horse of the North or a terrible fate awaits you. Dropping two points away to Stoke City is but the start of it.

It's not that it's illegal to have a crack at Fergie. It's just that when you do so, everyone in football winces. It's like when the clowns bring a bucket of whitewash into the ring. You know someone is going to get covered sooner rather than later - and it's always one of the clowns.