The scale of the divisiveness on the Ashes tour which ultimately cost Kevin Pietersen his international career extended beyond a push for the removal of team director Andy Flower.
While Pietersen?s barely disguised contempt for Flower?s management and methods boiled over during a players-only meeting after the fourth Test in Melbourne that left most of the squad flabbergasted, sources claim he had also had captain Alastair Cook and vice-captain Matt Prior in his sights for much of the tour.
Pietersen has never hidden his dislike and distrust of Flower?s approach, so there was shock but little surprise when he tore into the coach at that meeting, forcing Cook and Prior to intervene more than once.
But it is now emerging that as well as wanting Flower replaced as coach, Pietersen had grave misgivings about Cook?s captaincy and tactical approach and he further thought Prior was not worth his place ? and he made those views known to various colleagues on the tour. Furthermore, it is known he had little time for batting coach Graham Gooch.
There is debate over his motivation for pursuing an agenda of wholesale change from within the dressing room. His supporters suggest it was based on genuine and objective concern for the future prospects of the team.
Others say he never got over losing the captaincy in the fiasco which resulted in his sacking and that of coach Peter Moores in the winter of 2008-09, and that he saw the Ashes loss as an opportunity to grab it back.
Whatever lies behind his thinking, the disappointment felt by Cook and Prior is all the more acute because Pietersen is aware that, were it not for them, his international career might have ended in 2012 after the Textgate storm that enveloped English cricket in crisis.
Then, when Pietersen was dropped for the final Test against South Africa after it emerged he had sent derogatory text messages to ?close friends? inside the opposition dressing room about Flower and Andrew Strauss, then skipper, certain powerful voices were dead set on ending Pietersen?s seven-year Test career.
Had Strauss carried on, it may have spelled the end for him.
But, after Pietersen said it was ?tough being me in the England dressing room? in an extraordinary press conference following his brilliant hundred at Headingley, Prior extended the hand of friendship.
The wicketkeeper was the only player to call his troubled team-mate in an effort to move forward.
Later, even though Pietersen was not at first selected for the tour to India, new captain Cook sought to canvass the opinions of his senior players and then made decisive moves to bring him back into the fold.
Yet senior figures consider Pietersen?s actions undermined team spirit from the start.
They point out that his silence over an all-out attack on Cook by his close friend and ally Shane Warne before the series, when the Aussie called for the captain to be replaced by Pietersen, and KP?s disinclination to offer public support thereafter left more questions than answers.
And his refusal to counter the assault on Cook by his No 1 cheerleader, Piers Morgan, who tweeted ?Sack Cook? at every available opportunity, did little to help team unity.
When Pietersen hijacked the team meeting in Melbourne ? called with Flower?s support and aimed at urging players to take more responsibility for their performances ? he tried to press for a regime change.
That was seen as final confirmation that he had no qualms about undermining team unity already rocked by the trauma of Jonathan Trott?s early departure and the continuing struggles on the field.
When, before making the decision to sack Pietersen last week, new managing director Paul Downton took soundings from all concerned, he was left in no doubt of the general belief that Pietersen?s actions and behaviour concerning Flower, Cook and Prior were not merely divisive, but bordered on a deliberate attempt to undermine the leadership of the group.
