Kevin Pietersen and the top 10 classic quitters

Kevin Pietersen has thrown English cricket into turmoil after believing to have quit as England captain. The 'resignation' comes only five months after taking on the job and was sparked by a rift with Engalnd coach Peter Moores.

Here are 10 other quitters who shocked the world (or, in one case, Peterborough):

10) Roy Keane
The Irishman's Labrador retriever has been dragged out for numerous walkies over the years as Keano quit various jobs. Most recently he walked out on Sunderland when he quit as boss last month, and back in 2002 he turned his back on the Irish team's World Cup campaign after instructing manager Mick McCarthy to "stick it up your b******s".

9) Steve Bleasdale
In April 2006, the Peterborough United manager shocked his players but delighted TV viewers by resigning during a pre-match team talk. Posh allowed cameras into the dressing room to follow disgraced TV pundit Ron Atkinson in his return to the game as the club's director of football. But the final straw for Bleasdale came when chairman Barry Fry insisted on making a motivational speech 70 minutes before one game. "I've resigned, fellas. Good luck everyone," the camera captured him saying before heading out of the door

8) Malcolm McLaren
Corkscrew-haired punk pioneer McLaren is usually far ahead of his time, counting Vivienne Westwood and the Sex Pistols among his discoveries. Alas, Malcolm took this to extremes on the last series of I'm A Celebrity…, actually getting out of there before the cameras started rolling. "The reality is their jungle is a glorified film set," he explained to a frankly unshocked world.

7) Sol Campbell
When the referee blew his whistle for half-time in the Premier League game between Arsenal and West Ham on February 1 2006, defender Sol Campbell headed down the Highbury tunnel, through the dressing room and into the Gunners' treatment room where he sat in silence until being confronted by physio Gary Lewin. "I can't go back out there," Campbell, responsible for both West Ham goals and being run ragged by Bobby Zamora, admitted. Then, in an echo of Stephen Fry's meltdown, he headed off to Belgium and spoke of retirement and a future career in Hollywood. Amazingly, by May he was scoring in the Champions League final.

6) Harold Wilson
No political resignation was more shocking than the Labour leader's as Prime Minister in April 1976. Wild rumours claimed the Huddersfield supporter was to be outed as a Russian spy or that he feared removal in a military coup orchestrated by Lord Mountbatten. The truth was duller and altogether sadder: Wilson had begun to recognize the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, with which he struggled until his death in 1988.

5) Daniel Day-Lewis
The Oscar-winning method actor has not appeared on stage since 1989, when he walked out of a performance of Hamlet during the first act after holding a conversation with the ghost of his father, Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis, on stage. "To me, it was like a natural conclusion to the job I was doing," he said. "If I hadn't arrived at that centre of confusion, I would have probably felt a sense of disappointment." Day-Lewis later quit Hollywood to become a cobbler in Florence. He is not thought to have enjoyed subsequent headlines like 'Last Of The Moccasins'.

4) Chris Martin
Coldplay's laugh-a-decade frontman has built a reputation as a serial quitter of interviews. "I'm not really enjoying this," he told Radio 4 in June this year before scarpering, having done similar in a previous chat with Observer Music Monthly when asked about his wife, Gwyneth Paltrow. "Isn't it a bit harsh to say I walked out?" he asked The Times shortly afterwards, during a joint interview with guitarist Johnny Buckland. "If you come back two minutes later is that a walk-out? Strictly speaking?" Said the disloyal Buckland: "I think it sort of is."

3) Marcus Trescothick
Having been 'rested' from England's 2004-5 tour of Zimbabwe, the batsman has since established himself as the most reluctant sporting traveler since Dennis Bergkamp. In 2006 he quit series in India (virus) and Australia (stress) as rumours of a long-standing battle with depression grew, but England were confident enough of a recovery that they named 'Banger' in the squad for 2007's Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa. Again he withdrew and, after oulling out of Somerset's 2008 tour to Dubai, has announced his international retirement.

2) Joe Strummer
Urban warrior Strummer - a former boarding school pupil whose father was a high-ranking British diplomat - quit the Clash and disappeared altogether shortly before the release of their 1982 Combat Rock album. Though sightings of the punk rock Lord Lucan placed him in New York, Egypt and beyond, Strummer was actually in France, where he ran the Paris Marathon and "smoked so much weed I almost turned into a bush". Manager Bernie Rhodes later claimed to have staged the walk-out as a publicity stunt.

1) Kevin Keegan
The king of all quitters. Keegan has walked out of Newcastle three times - the first memorably claiming that "it's not like they said in the brochure" - and, having led England to defeat by Germany in the final game at the old Wembley Stadium, chose the ideal place to resign as national team boss... the dressing room bogs. "Dragging Kevin into a cubicle, I shut the door behind us," wrote former FA chief executive David Davies in his autobiography. "'You can't change my mind,' Kevin said. 'I'm going out to the press to tell them I'm not up to it.'" Davies then had to persuade him not to quit the toilets but stay inside with the door locked until the FA's international committee had been informed.