Bob Willis told Sky Sports News that Peter Moores had to stand down as England coach.
Coach must follow captain and resign before Ashes, says Willis
Bob Willis believes Peter Moores will have to follow Kevin Pietersen's lead and stand down.
The England coach was the surprise survivor in the power struggle with his captain, which ended in resignation on Wednesday morning.
Pietersen has given up the captaincy - after only three Tests - ahead of the tour to the West Indies, leaving English cricket in disarray with the Ashes approaching.
But Willis says things could well get even worse - because Moores' position as coach has now become untenable - and that the ECB have only got themselves to blame.
"It's a huge shock," he told
Sky Sports News. "It doesn't bode well for the ECB.
"After the debacle of the 5-0 whitewash in Australia they had the Scofield review, they got all these tiers of management above the England side now and the committee, or the management board, have made this decision openly not to support Kevin Pietersen.
"Really they only have themselves to blame. They put all these structures in place, they chose the coach, they chose the captain and they chose two people that couldn't work together.
"It's a right mess and the last thing England cricket needs in the run up to the Ashes in July.
"Is the coach going to be retained? How can he have any credibility after this sequence of events? Half of the dressing room are going to be on Pietersen's side, half on Moores' side - I would have thought that in the current climate they would both have to go."
Andrew Flintoff and Andrew Strauss are the early favourites to succeed the Hampshire man as captain.
Willis believes the latter is the right man for the job, but whoever takes over he does not foresee any problems with Pietersen returning to the ranks after his short stint as skipper.
"I think it will be easier for him than it would for other people in the same situation," said Willis.
"Kevin is very self-motivated, some would say selfish, about his ambitions in the game. He won't have any problems scoring runs for Kevin Pietersen but we need more than that from him, we need a team player.
"He became the talisman for England when Flintoff was away injured and we they can ill afford to do without him,.
"There's obviously been several cliques in the England side since Duncan Fletcher was involved and Flintoff and Steve Harmison weren't part of that Fletcher family. They made that very clear and I think they got on with Moores much better than Fletcher.
"Don't kid yourself, Flintoff and Pietersen are not two peas in a pod. Yes, they respect each other as cricketers but they are not like souls at all."
