There's no smoke without fire and there aren't many big stories that escape the attention of Ralph Ellis. Here's his take on the row that has erupted between Kevin Pietersen and Peter Moores over the omission of Michael Vaughan for the tour of the West Indies.

How quickly things change from one year to the next. It was 2008 when I was writing a column full of delight that Australia's cricketers were in disarray, and looking forward to the chances of England winning an Ashes series. Now here we are in 2009 and it turns out that our lot are in a mess too!

No sooner had the last glows flickered out from the midnight celebrations than the next lot of sporting fireworks began. Kevin Pietersen's fragile relationship with England coach Peter Moores has come to a head and the captain is warning that one or the other of them will have to go.

The full extent of the row tumbles out in this morning's Daily Mail, and while there will no doubt be a few hasty denials, this is one you can believe. Paul Newman, the Mail's cricket correspondent, is the man who ghosted Pietersen's book and remains close to the swashbuckling batsman. The story is also covered by John Etheridge in the Sun, another of the cricket tour veterans who knows his people and is trusted when somebody wants a story to leak.

The background to the row centres on the decision to leave Michael Vaughan out of the party that will head to the West Indies for a four Test tour at the end of this month. Pietersen is currently on a safari holiday in Africa but his mobile phone clearly gets a better signal there than mine did at midnight. He's demanded showdown talks with ECB chairman Giles Clarke because, according to Newman, he feels betrayed by Moores over the treatment of Vaughan.

Newman explains it thus: "He [Pietersen] sees Vaughan's presence as crucial to England's attempt to win the Ashes next summer. Indeed he feels that Vaughan's tactical acumen would have been crucial on the final day of the first Test of the recent tour in Chennai, when India were able to score 387 to win and Pietersen's inexperience as a leader was exposed. Pietersen feels no insecurity in his role as captain and knows that he will be a better leader with Vaughan beside him."

It's clear that it was Moores - who had a difficult working relationship with Vaughan during their brief spell working together - who swayed the selectors in favour of keeping Ian Bell and Owais Shah in the touring party for the Caribbean. And according to Newman the gossip is that the former captain intends to make it perfectly clear what he thinks of the coach when he writes his own autobiography at the end of his career.

I still think it makes England all the more worth backing for the Ashes at their current price of [2.68]. Pietersen is the most likely to win the battle because he has proved himself an exceptional leader as well as an exceptional batsman and nobody in their right mind would risk him walking away.

But it will cast a shadow over the tour to the West Indies and when the market for that trip is formed there will need to be a bit of caution on how the dispute has been settled. Watch this space.

Five things you might not know about ECB chairman Giles Clarke

1.Born in Bristol in 1953 he went to Rugby School then studied Persian with Arabic at Oxford University

2.Betfair users will warm to him - he paid his way through his studies by making a consistent profit gambling!

3.He started work as an investment banker before buying from receivership the assets of what became Majestic Wine. He sold that company for £15million in 1989

4.His next ventures were Pet City and Safestore, building both before selling them for a total of £194million. He's put the money back into even more diverse business interests.

5.As chairman of Somerset he's now based near Bristol where he owns a Brasserie named after his son, Jack.

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