Kevin Pietersen has launched fierce criticism against his former England teammate Matt Prior by accusing the wicketkeeper of being a "negative influence" and a bully within the national setup.

Pietersen has opened up about the controversy that led to his England axe earlier this year following their disastrous Ashes campaign in Australia last winter.

Ahead of the release of his autobiography, Pietersen has told The Telegraph that he went to former player Andrew Strauss and current captain Alastair Cook about Prior and the bowlers, who had allegedly developed a culture of bullying.

"Horrendous. Hugely disturbing," Pietersen told the newspaper. "I brought it up. All throughout my reintegration meetings, I brought it up on numerous occasions. I told Strauss about it, I told Cook about it. It was a huge thing.

"It's only Prior that I'd seriously have real issues with, because of how he was portrayed as a team man, the heart and soul of the dressing room, when he was getting up to the stuff he was getting up to."

Pietersen alleges that Prior, who has not been offered a central contract from the ECB for next season due to injury problems, would yell aggressively at fielders if they made a mistake and would force them to apologise to the bowlers.