GEOFFREY Boycott insists Kevin Pietersen has a right to be "miffed" after his England career was cut short without proper explanation.

Former England opener Boycott was, like Pietersen, no stranger to controversy during his own outstanding international career.

He traces Pietersen and England's problems back to the re-positioning of management power in early 2009 - a "recipe for disaster" which came to fruition.

Pietersen discovered he could not work with Peter Moores, but that crisis concluded with both captain and then coach relieved of those roles and Andy Flower put in charge instead.

Flower had been Moores' assistant, and Pietersen had already made it clear he had little regard for the man-management methods of either.

By the superstar batsman's own admission, it was the source of many of his difficulties as he had to work for a new coach - while fitting back into the ranks under Andrew Strauss' captaincy - and in his own words, Flower subsequently had a "vendetta" against him.

Boycott acknowledges all of that, in conversation with Cricinfo, and ultimately sympathises with Pietersen over his claims that the England and Wales Cricket Board failed to cite ample reasons to him for his sacking in February after last winter's whitewash Ashes defeat.

"I'd be miffed if my career had been finished for no reasons given," said Boycott.

"It's actually a pretty big thing when you've got a very talented player ... (and) a country says, 'Fine, we want to move on without you'.

"I think [both parties] have a duty to the public to say what their reasons are."