With the Ashes little more than six months away, it is hard to know which of the rival teams are in a worse state. One side have endured a torrid winter on the field, while tales abound of dressing-room spats. Their coach, still relatively new to the job, is struggling to exert his authority; their captain and best player rages at the cards he has been dealt by the selectors; their leading batsmen are struggling for runs; their best fast bowlers keep getting injured and no one knows what is wrong with their spinners.

Enough about Australia, though. Any schadenfreude that an England supporter may be feeling at the old enemy’s woes will evaporate with the realisation that the same problems face England. Battered in the Stanford Super Series and five one-day internationals in India, England then lost a Test they could have won in Madras (Chennai) and struggled in Mohali. They begin 2009 with only six Tests against West Indies to play before the start of the sport’s oldest contest.

The biggest worry for England – bigger than the question of why Alastair Cook makes fifties but not hundreds or why Monty Panesar seems to be going through the motions — is that the relationship between Kevin Pietersen, the captain, and Peter Moores, the head coach, appears to have reached crisis point. Divorce lawyers reckon that they get most business in the second week of January and the men running the England team may also be heading for a split next week when Pietersen returns from holiday in Africa.

There were reports yesterday that Pietersen had demanded talks with Giles Clarke, the chairman of the ECB, about Moores’s position and had threatened to resign if the head coach was not replaced. The Times understands, however, that no meeting with Clarke has been arranged and that, in any case, Hugh Morris, the England managing director, would be the more appropriate channel through which Pietersen can air his grievances.

Morris, the former Glamorgan and England opening batsman, has proved to be a skilled diplomat, especially in the recent debate about whether England should tour India after the attacks on Mumbai, and he may yet offer a path to peace. The ECB said yesterday that Morris would meet Pietersen, Moores and the other coaches before the party leaves for the West Indies on January 21, to discuss the India series as part of the usual review procedure.

Pietersen is believed to have been angry that the selectors, of whom Moores is one, had not recalled Michael Vaughan for the tour to the Caribbean. Pietersen is close to his predecessor as captain and wanted to benefit from his tactical advice, but the selectors felt that Vaughan had not yet shown that he had recovered his batting form after a long slump. When naming the team on Monday, Geoff Miller, the national selector, said: “We have listened to the captain but feel that we have to be loyal [to the batsmen who went to India].”

Disagreements between captains and selectors are nothing new, but Vaughan also found it difficult to get what he wanted under Moores. Before the second Test against South Africa at Headingley Carnegie last summer, Vaughan is believed to have wanted Simon Jones to be recalled, but Moores and the selectors plumped for the untried Darren Pattinson. It may well have been one of the reasons why Vaughan decided to stand down.

Moores, 46, succeeded Duncan Fletcher as the England head coach in April 2007, having been successful as coach of Sussex, leading them to their first County Championship in 2003, and with the England Academy. Yet some have felt that he is not suited to coaching an international side, particularly in handling the egos and demands of world-class players.

Pietersen insisted on a lengthy meeting with Moores to air his concerns before accepting the captaincy in August and he did not shy away from criticising the head coach’s approach in public. In a press conference, Pietersen said that the “all day, every day” training regime Moores had employed for the previous winter’s tour to New Zealand had been damaging and, that under his captaincy, England would be allowed time off.

Vaughan has admitted that he considered resigning during that unhappy tour and Pietersen, whom no one can accuse of avoiding hard work, felt that Moores did not understand the pressures senior players were under during a Test series. It was clear from the start that Pietersen viewed England as his side, with Moores as an outside aide, rather than the two of them being in charge.

It is never helpful when captain and coach do not get on, even if there are instances when it has galvanised a team. At the 2002 football World Cup, Ireland came close to reaching the last eight despite the public falling-out between Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy. Pietersen has not yet, as far as we know, told Moores that he can stick the Ashes up his b*******, as Keane said to McCarthy about the World Cup, but his views on the head coach are hardly camouflaged.

Morris would rather see a reconciliation than lose either captain or coach so close to the Ashes, yet there is no doubt that if Pietersen pushed the issue, England would be loath to lose the one batsman whom Australia fear. But if things look grim now, it should be remembered that a lot can change in a short period in sport. After all, at this stage before the 2005 Ashes a certain Kevin Pietersen had not even played Test cricket.