Martin Johnson, the England manager, is facing a selection headache in the pack after London Wasps' lock Tom Palmer was yesterday ruled out for up to three months after surgery on a shoulder injury.

Palmer damaged his shoulder during a Premiership match against Saracens three weeks ago. A scan showed he had torn cartilage near the socket, prompting the surgery, and he has been told he will be out of action for up to 12 weeks.

"This has happened at a terrible time but there's no point beating myself up about it," said Palmer, who was a starting lock for England against Australia and South Africa. "We're at a crucial stage of the season with two massive Heineken Cup matches coming up [for Wasps] and the Six Nations beyond that. It's very frustrating but all I can do is concentrate on my rehab."

Palmer is the second forward and second Wasps player to be ruled out this week after the flanker Tom Rees ruptured a medial ligament in his knee against Harlequins on Sunday. Lock has traditionally been a strong position for England, and Steve Borthwick will feel that the pressure on his position has been eased even though he captained England to heavy defeats against their southern-hemisphere opponents in the autumn.

The agreement between Twickenham and the leading clubs over the management of elite players, which came into force six months ago, has ushered in a spirit of cooperation where previously there had been division, according to the Premier Rugby chief executive, Mark McCafferty.

McCafferty conducted a review of the agreement yesterday with Johnson and the Rugby Football Union's director of elite rugby, Rob Andrew. "There is a real sense of cooperation now," he said. "It is important that Martin gets the support he needs."

After all the speculation – resignations, sackings – it proved to be one of each. Kevin Pietersen, the England captain for barely five tumultuous months, has decided that under the circumstances he cannot continue in the role, and he has therefore resigned.

For Peter Moores, a man who would have dismissed the idea that the whim of a supreme egotist could make him walk away from the highest paid coaching post in the world, it has been less satisfactory, the England and Wales Cricket Board deciding that, with so much comment having been aired about his abilities, his job had become untenable and he had to "relinquish his role". Nice way of putting it – he was sacked.

It has been a most unseemly spat, although most of it has been conducted by the world and his donkey rather than the two parties concerned. Certainly there could have been more decorum and Pietersen might have done well to recognise that, inconvenient though it may have been, the circumstances demanded his presence in England rather than on safari in South Africa. He has been gauche, for this is a big game too.

A global view, then, might be that English cricket is a fiasco. The reality, however, which will be seen once the dust has settled and the team are ensconced on St Kitts in the Caribbean, is that out of it all the right things may have happened, at least so far as the Test team are concerned. It is, with a nice sense of timing, precisely six months until the first day of the Ashes series and, no matter how people view the forthcoming six Tests against West Indies, this will be the focus. And from the hiatus, far from having their chances diminished against a vulnerable Australian team, England's prospects have been enhanced.

Objectives have been achieved. The whole issue arose because Pietersen recognised that the team were not progressing under Moores' tutelage, a change was needed and he was, he felt anyway, in a position to do something about it. He might not have anticipated the outcome for himself – maybe someone one day will regard it as a noble sacrifice in the team cause – but so far as Moores is concerned Pietersen has got his way.

The team will, at the start of the summer, have a new coach regarded as the best available to do the job, someone the ECB has head-hunted globally rather than simply employing succession planning and going to its own elite coaching programme. There is time in hand to do this too now, with an interim person in place for the Caribbean tour. That new coach will have ample opportunity to make his own assessments, and there will be two Test matches against West Indies in the spring in which to stamp his mark. All being well, England will go into the Ashes with the new broom still sweeping merrily.

They will have a perfectly sound, intelligent cricketer too as Test match captain, although the old problem of split captaincy, not insurmountable but not ideal either, will re-emerge. Andrew Strauss has had a tilt at the job before and has not been found wanting. That he did not take the side to Australia two winters ago rankles still, but he has been given a chance now and will do it diligently.

It remains only to see how the responsibility impacts on Strauss's game. Although he has been rehabilitated in the side in the past year, his success in India, with twin hundreds in the first Test in Chennai, came with runs scored on slow turning pitches that allowed back-foot play and his old default boundary area square to the off side. He has yet to be tested by patient, straight, full-length seam bowling of the kind that throttled him into a slump. If his form were to go, would the captaincy encumber him further?

It is Pietersen, and by extension England, who might just benefit most from the decision he has made (probably with encouragement). At the time of his appointment, after Michael Vaughan's resignation, he was the only credible candidate once it had been decided that captaincy should be unified across the formats. There were caveats: was Pietersen not enough of a team player to be able to thrust aside the perception that he was in the game for himself first and foremost; and would it force him to rein in his often outrageous talent? Neither proved to be the case, but he had only three Test matches so the sample was small.

Pietersen, though, is someone who has had his career mapped out in his own mind since the early days. He is focused, relentlessly, on achieving goals within the game and, ruthlessly at times, making sure he gets there. But never in his wildest dream would he have factored in the England captaincy. That was a bonus. Now he can go back on to the track he was following, a load lifted.

He is the fulcrum of the side, a match-winner and a player unique to his time and possibly in the history of the game. One day we will look back and marvel. Now he is free of the shackles of captaincy, we should expect great things and he will be determined to show them.

They might say otherwise in Australia but, far from being plunged deeper into a crisis, the England team have made progress this week. It has just been a bit fractious, that's all.

English cricket may never have seen a day like it. Kevin Pietersen, the captain, offered his resignation to the England and Wales Cricket Board at 4.45pm yesterday in the knowledge that he would have been forced out anyway, while Peter Moores, the coach, was sacked without any trimmings and Andrew Strauss was named to assume the captaincy.

The departure of Pietersen, whose three-Test spell in charge began so promisingly last August against South Africa at The Oval, was inevitable as soon as Hugh ­Morris, the managing director of the England team, realised the extent of ­dressing-room antipathy towards him.

It is understood that Pietersen lacked the backing of some of his senior colleagues, including Andrew Flintoff, although he is thought to have retained pockets of support. But the desire among England and Wales Cricket Board bosses to "restore the dressing-room unity", as ­Morris put it yesterday in a brief statement, persuaded the 12-man ECB manage­ment board to dispense with him when they met on Tuesday evening. Scheduled to arrive home this morning from a ­sailing and surfing holiday in South Africa, ­Pietersen will do so as a member of the rank and file.

Speaking at Durban airport before his departure, he said: "I am extremely sad and disappointed to have to relinquish the captaincy at such an early stage, especially in a crucial year for English cricket, in such circumstances and particularly when I feel that I have much more to offer the England team as captain.

"However, this decision will not affect my determination to continue playing international cricket for England, doing all I can to win matches for the team and supporting whoever captains the team in the future."

Moores, meanwhile, who replaced ­Duncan Fletcher as coach in April 2007, has in effect been punished partly for ­failing to establish a working relationship with his captain, but mainly for ­presiding over a series of mediocre results. If ­Pietersen did not rate him, then his record – four Test-series defeats out of seven – did not present much of a defence. He is said to be bitterly disappointed.

Only delicate legal discussions remain now. Moores' rolling contract with the ECB was worth upwards of £250,000 a year. The board hopes to find a permanent replacement by the start of the English season in April, although Andy Flower, the current batting coach, could step in on a temporary basis for the forthcoming tour of the Caribbean.

Relations between Moores and ­Pietersen have never been less than tense but they came to a head during the recent tour of India following England's ­traumatic defeat in the first Test at ­Chennai. Pietersen approached Morris with his concerns, prompting a meeting between all three on the eve of the second Test at Mohali.

But the problems, both of personality and cricketing philosophy, remained once England returned home. And when ­Pietersen complained in his most recent Sunday newspaper column that his rift with the coach had reached "unhealthy" proportions, a sentiment that did not go down well with his bosses at the ECB, the story gathered pace.

It emerged this week that Pietersen had taken his grievances to Giles Clarke, the ECB chairman, at which point things got out of control. Pietersen's apparent ultimatum – presented along the lines of "either the coach goes or I do" – did not please the management board, but it was his failure to secure the support of his peers that ultimately cost him. Yesterday he distanced himself from any implication that he had been the source of the leak regarding his talk with Clarke. "I have principles in my professional and personal life as to how things are done and during my time as England captain I have always been both helpful and direct in my communications with the ECB.

"At no time, contrary to press speculation, have I released any unauthorised information to the media regarding my relationships with the players, coaches and the ECB itself."

When it came, the ending for both men was fittingly frenetic. Sky Sports News erroneously reported yesterday ­morning that both Pietersen and Moores had resigned. The ECB offered a bemused denial but by this stage proceedings had entered the realms of semantics.

A day of confusion followed, including a sighting of Strauss and Geoff Miller, the national selector, at Lord's, and a strange quote from Pietersen, who told Sky he was not "in a fit state to talk". When he finally did, it was merely to confirm that his fleeting role as England cricket captain had come to an end.

For Strauss, back in the job after four Tests in charge in 2006 and 2007, the work begins at once. Discussions with Morris today will include the thorny question of his one-day role: he has not played in an ODI since the departure of Fletcher. But he also knows that England's disunity, for so long a dirty secret, could present his biggest challenge.

It took only one word but with it Harry Redknapp revealed his simmering frustrations with David Bentley and raised questions about the midfielder's future at Tottenham Hotspur. The manager substituted the out-of-form 24-year-old at half-time during Tuesday's Carling Cup semi-final first-leg victory over Burnley. "He didn't feel well," said Redknapp. Then came the devastating caveat: "Apparently".

Redknapp admitted he had subjected his players to a 15-minute ­dressing-down when they trailed 1-0 after a lacklustre first-half ­performance, but Bentley was the only one not to re-emerge. Redknapp later raised his eyebrows at reports of a stomach bug; Bentley did not train yesterday, citing the illness.

No one was more off-form against Burnley than Bentley, who was once again played out of position on the left of midfield. His flicks did not come off and drew groans from the White Hart Lane crowd. Moreover, he was among the guilty in the goal that ­Tottenham conceded – he tracked back half-heartedly to help out the left-back, Gareth Bale, but Burnley's Chris Eagles skipped easily between the pair and crossed for the unmarked Martin Paterson to steer home. Redknapp named no names in his criticisms but it was not difficult to discern Bentley between the lines.

"It was a disappointing goal [to concede]," said the manager. "People will accept you making ­mistakes, they will accept you giving the ball away and they will accept you losing the ball if you try to beat somebody. What they won't accept is you giving up.

"If you lose the ball, they won't accept you not running back and ­chasing and trying to get the ball back. That is what people have paid their money to come and see. They have come to see effort as well as skill. If you don't put in effort, you are going to be in trouble."

Bentley's problem, which he also encountered under Juande Ramos, the manager who was in charge when he signed from Blackburn Rovers for £15m last summer, is that he cannot play regularly on the right of midfield, his favoured position, because of the ­presence of Aaron Lennon, whose form has improved markedly this season.

It may also be a worry for Bentley that Redknapp is expected to capture the Middlesbrough left-winger Stewart Downing this month and also has Jamie O'Hara, a left-footed midfielder, in his squad. O'Hara replaced Bentley on Tuesday and helped orchestrate Tottenham's eventual 4-1 win, setting up two goals and scoring one himself.

"It's difficult balancing up David and Aaron, and I am not doing David any favours by playing him on the left," ­admitted Redknapp. "The boy is a right-sided player but Aaron is more comfortable on the right and I have ended up sticking David out on the left, and it is not easy for him. Jamie came on [against Burnley] and he gave us terrific balance and great effort. He was outstanding, tremendous."

Bentley bristles with self-belief but he is a confidence player who responds to an arm around the shoulder and the right platform to show off his rich natural ­talent. He felt marginalised and unsettled under Ramos, and it showed in his game, but as soon as Redknapp took over, talked him up and played him on the right his form returned. His sublime 40-yard goal in the 4-4 draw at Arsenal at the end of October will live long in the memory. But Lennon appears to have emerged as Redknapp's first choice on the right and Bentley, reduced to fits and spurts, faces uncertain times. There has even been the suggestion that Mark Hughes, the manager who got the best out of him at Blackburn, might seek to take him to ­Manchester City this month.

By resorting to the stick in preference to the carrot, Redknapp is taking a risk with Bentley. He also told his players during his half-time tirade that he would "find out an awful lot about you in the second half" and it must have irked Bentley that he was not a part of the ­showing of true colours. "The ­manager said a few words; he wasn't happy," said the central defender Michael Dawson, "but we responded in the second half. We came out and showed a lot of character."

Andy Murray needs only one more win to earn a likely meeting with Roger Federer tomorrow, a semi-final rematch which would bring further excited speculation about the Scot's steadily developing ­ability to become the first Briton in more than 70 years to win a grand slam title.

Right now Murray is dealing with bread-and-butter matches with a commendable lack of stress and conservation of energy — further ingredients necessary for surviving a seven-match, two-week ordeal in great heat at the Australian Open later this month.

Yesterday he did this with a 6–2, 6–4 win over Philipp Petzschner in the Qatar Open which took only 72 minutes and was achieved with his second dominating performance in a row. It underlined Murray's own view that not only does he approach matches with stronger focus now, but he maintains it for longer. Once ahead, he makes it desperately hard for opponents to get back into the match.

Petzschner, a 24-year-old German, has been moving steadily to within sight of the top 50 and mixes a clinging slice on the backhand with fierce flat hits on the forehand, but Murray contained all that and removed the upstart from his path with an admirable inevitability.

The match perhaps turned on a tightly contested third game with Petzschner serving, which brought five deuces, lasted 11 minutes and ended with Murray making the first service break.