Australia coach John Buchanan has questioned the unity within England's squad by suggesting star player Kevin Pietersen is not a team player.
The under-fire tourists have gone to great lengths to insist the spirit and togetherness which played a big part in regaining the Ashes 15 months ago was still intact despite trailing 4-0 in the current series.
But as England prepare for the final Test in Sydney and try to avoid becoming only the second side in history to suffer an Ashes whitewash, Buchanan believes he has detected signals that not every player is pulling in the same direction.
'He seems to distance himself quite a bit on the field and that might be because that's where England want him to field,' suggested Buchanan, who is due to end his post at the end of the World Cup.
'They might want him out on the boundary but he's a good fieldsman, he's good around the ring. He's somebody who seems to be distanced from the rest of the group.
'Like all of us you have your moments and you're critical of this and that, but I wonder sometimes if the criticism of him is because he is different.
'Differences are an important make up of the side. We've got some different people in our side and that's a very healthy thing to have, you need differences to put together to make up a good side.
'Pietersen certainly talks about himself as a team player and I don't personally see any evidence of that, but that's from a distance. I'm not in their dressing room, so he could be one of the greatest team men of all time.'
Buchanan believes evidence of that has manifested itself in Pietersen moving up the order to number four having batted the rest of the series at number five for the second innings of the fourth Test at the MCG.
The Australian coach claims that move up the order hints at Pietersen's disillusionment about the way the current series has fared with England losing the first four Tests.
'I would have thought Pietersen has been asking for a long period of time and obviously there are reasons why that he hasn't been given the opportunity to do that,' said Buchanan.
'It didn't come off in the one innings that was tried yesterday, but he's a quality player, there's no doubt about that.
'He's their strike power, the one who has the ability to turn a game on its head as all very good players can do. He does it because he can score so quickly and to different parts of the ground.'
While Buchanan was focused on attempting to undermine England before the final Test, Australia's selectors wasted no time in naming an unchanged 12 for Sydney despite the SCG's reputation for favouring a twin spin attack.
Left-arm seamer Mitchell Johnson, included in every squad of the series without featuring, is again expected to be named as twelfth man with Australia almost certain to name an unchanged line-up.
