Sir Dave Brailsford, the Team Sky principal, has sympathy for Andy Flower after the Kevin Pietersen saga laid bare the challenges of leading an elite sporting team.

Brailsford believes it has been forgotten how successful Flower was as England team director.

"I'm very sympathetic to Andy Flower," he said. "I've never met Kevin Pietersen, but I do know Andy Flower. I rate Andy Flower.

"I can't draw a conclusion or comment because I don't know the full story or the full detail of the facts. [But] we shouldn't forget that he's had a fantastic run at managing the national team.

"People forget that we hadn't won the Ashes for such a long time and he took us on a journey down to Australia and he took the Ashes back. I'm not a cricket aficionado, but, to me, I think he changed the mentality, from a pretty poor run, all of a sudden we were winning the Ashes and we were expected to win the Ashes."

Brailsford has had his own selection challenges, struggling to accommodate Sir Bradley Wiggins, the 2012 Tour de France winner and the next year's champion Chris Froome in the same team, so is familiar with dilemmas. "The best sports people in the world aren't normal people," said Brailsford. "So you're bound to get difficult scenarios and conflict.

"When you've got flair players, or big characters, the guys who don't quite fit. It's a challenge for all of us to try to marry those into a team. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

"You've got to decide if you want a team and if being a team is the optimal way of winning. And if you've got somebody who is contrary to that process of having a team, you've got to think very carefully about what you're trying to do. If you get the right guys [in a team], they're motivated, passionate about it, we put the right group together, the team will look after itself."

"There's an element, if we're not careful, of the whole team ethic and values which doesn't penetrate right down to individual performance on a day to day, granular level."

Wiggins was not selected in Team Sky's squad for the Tour de France, which began in Yorkshire in July, with Brailsford opting to avoid conflict in the three-week race by backing Froome for glory. Froome's challenge ultimately ended due to injury.

Brailsford added: "The decision I made was I felt the best chance of Team Sky winning this year lay in Chris Froome's hands. I built the team around that."