If Kevin Pietersen really did offer tactical advice that was useful to his native South Africa in their successful bid to oust England from the top of the world Test rankings, it is hard to see a way back into the international game for him.

There can surely be no greater betrayal of the team ethic than to undermine your own colleagues. To do so – and he appears to have done so – is surely beyond the pale.

He does not seem a man given to generosity of spirit, but even Pietersen must understand that he owes English cricket a greater debt of gratitude than most for the opportunity he has been given to earn the money he now can from the likes of the Indian Premier League.

For whatever reason, he is among a number of South African-born players – Andrew Strauss, the England captain, is another – who have just had it demonstrated to them that they are not currently as good as those who stayed there to play for the national team.

Pietersen left South Africa late in his teens and has flourished as an England cricketer. However, even setting aside the wrongs and wrongs of his texting tips, his behaviour has often let him down, particularly since his brief flirtation with the England captaincy ended in both his departure from that post and that of Peter Moores, the then head coach.

Pietersen seems to feel he has been sinned against as much as sinning, which may be the case. Perhaps the behaviour of others needs to be addressed, too, and perhaps there have been management failings.

Under no circumstances would the passing on of inside information to opponents be acceptable but sometimes, if management fails, those involved in any walk of life are entitled to blow the whistle publicly.

If players are treated unfairly, they should go through the proper channels and expect something to be done about coaches, managers or captains who are not behaving properly and expect something to be done about it.

Failure on the part of the hierarchy to deal with that can lead to the demoralisation of the individual and the fracturing of group harmony, which can have a lasting effect, at all levels of sport and business.

Which brings us to Qasim Sheikh and his complaints this week about his treatment at the hands of Pete Steindl, the Scotland and Scottish Saltires head coach. It may be unfair to brand Sheikh as Scottish cricket's KP on the basis of one interview, but the personal nature of the attack on Steindl raises  a number of questions.

Sheikh claims to have made repeated efforts to contact Steindl to make clear his availability for development matches as well as the national side – I would have thought both of those should be taken for granted – but Roddy Smith, chief executive of Cricket Scotland and Steindl's superior, is insistent that no such approaches have been made.

That should be easily addressed. Either Sheikh has the right number for Steindl or he has not. Either way, he ought to be able to provide telephone records that show when he left messages for the coach.

Once that is clarified, it will be pretty obvious what action Cricket Scotland should take. If Sheikh is wronged thereafter, he will be fully entitled to go very public with his complaints.

Maybe Sheikh is right and a failure of management is leaving contenders for Scotland places demoralised.

Then again, maybe Smith is right in suggesting that Steindl's regime is a tough one because it needs to be. The chief executive implied that those not prepared to do the work necessary to become the sort of athletes top players now need to be in one-day international cricket – that is the form of the sport by which the Scotland team is principally judged – will fall by the wayside.

Looking from the outside, my own impression is of Steindl having, in his four years in charge, done an excellent job against the odds. I was among the stronger critics of the set-up at the time he took over an ageing squad that badly needed to be overhauled. Introducing young players from Scotland to international cricket is always challenging, given the problems we have in terms of weather conditions, facilities and the number of playing days available. This season has been spectacularly bad, the worst I can remember in more than 30 years.

Against that background, Scotland have been arguably as competitive as previously in their meetings with English county sides but, far more importantly, have won the only truly meaningful match on home soil in terms of their global status – they beat Canada in a one-day international – and claimed a first win over a country with Test status when the beat Bangladesh in a Twenty20 match.

That would seem to speak to intelligent planning and judicious use of the time available to get ready for those matches.

Perhaps those with inside information know differently. If so, perhaps I should anticipate a call putting me right – or perhaps not.