KEVIN PIETERSEN was told in a transcontinental telephone call from Hugh Morris, the managing director of the England team, that his resignation had been accepted when he was not even aware he had tendered it. The brief call was soon followed by an abrupt email confirming his five-month tenure as the team’s captain was at an end.

Pietersen also claimed last night that he was given no explanation for being forced out. He said Morris had called him after an emergency board meeting had determined that he had tendered his resignation. Pietersen had been under the impression that he would be meeting Morris within 48 hours of returning to London from South Africa to discuss the leadership crisis.

Pietersen, on holiday at the time, reacted to the blunt news from Morris by saying: “Excuse me?! Morris said, ‘We’ve accepted your resignation’. I said, ‘On what basis has it been accepted?’ He had no answer. Next I received an email from the ECB saying, ‘Your resignation is of immediate effect’ . . . To lose a job of that importance over the phone is crushing.”

Despite his shock at the way he was dismissed, Pietersen said: “I’m upset the captaincy has been taken away from me but I’m not going to start abusing people.”

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Pietersen had earlier sent an email to Morris, at the ECB’s request, outlining his future strategy for the team. In it he said that he could not tour under Moores again. “After speaking to a couple of the senior players and some of the management, I really wanted to get this right for English cricket . . . In my email I said that I can’t lead this team forward and take it to the West Indies if Peter Moores is coach.

“I just wanted someone to be my ally who I trusted and who I knew was tactically aware. I didn’t have that and those were my reasons for saying that I could not continue if Peter Moores was still the coach . . . I just wanted someone I knew I could work with for 24 hours a day.”

Writing in his News of the World column, Pietersen added that Morris had not told him in the telephone call or the email that Moores was also being removed and he had assumed that Moores had kept his job until he found out otherwise the following day. But Pietersen said he had known that board officials had been contemplating replacing Moores: he had held a meeting with Morris and David Collier, the ECB chief executive, in India during which “a few names as a possible new coach” had been discussed.

Pietersen’s claim that he was due to meet Morris in London on his return from holiday was confirmed by an ECB official but the official added that the meeting would only have resulted in a discussion about the “phased” departures of Pietersen and Moores.

The first players Pietersen confided in about his troubles in India were Andrew Strauss and Paul Collingwood. Then, on the last day of the tour, he told Andrew Flintoff and Steve Harmison.

“Straussy and Paul Collingwood knew that I was having a really tough time and then I explained to Harmy and Freddie Flintoff the day before we left. I said how hard a time I was having and how I was in a real bad place in terms of captaining England going forward.”

It is known that Flintoff spoke up in defence of Moores but Pietersen said Flintoff was supportive of him in India. “My relationship with Freddie was great and towards the end I sat down with him and I said, ‘Mate, this is what is going on.’ I explained about the meetings I’d had with the management over the situation with the coach. We had a good chat and Freddie’s parting words were, ‘You cannot leave as England captain.’

“I had a long chat with Harmy about what we were going to do going forward and how he would be seen as the best bowler in the world come the end of the Ashes. ‘That is your goal,’ I told him, ‘because I think you are a superstar.’

“And then we were talking about other stuff and he said to me, ‘Mate, I love you to bits and the last thing I want you to do is quit as captain’.”

Pietersen said that all four of the teammates he confided in — Strauss, Collingwood, Flintoff and Harmison — said to him: “Do not leave, please, as England captain.” But he added: “That’s not to say they wanted Peter Moores sacked.”

Pietersen appeared to scotch the ECB’s fears that he might now go off in disgruntlement and play a whole season in the Indian Premier League and miss England matches in the process. He said he was committed to England and gave no clue that he would do anything more than play in the IPL for the agreed 15-day period.

He said: “The ECB asked me about availability and I was like, ‘Excuse me?’ I thought it was a threat against me but I said I will be 100% committed to winning games of cricket for England.

“I am 28 years old and hope I can still play for England for another seven years. I am committed to England for the next however long . . .

“Right now, I feel it is right for me to go back and just play — to do something that I totally love, which is scoring runs for England. When I look back on my career I will have done everything to do the best I can for English cricket.”

Pietersen, saying he had unfinished business as England captain, had no qualms about rejoining the team. “I’ve got zero problem with walking back into that dressing room. I can look anybody in the eye. I can work with anybody in that team. I will be 100% supportive. I am man enough to accept when I have made a mistake. If I had made a mistake I would apologise.

“I have had loads of messages of support from within and outside the game.”