Two losses leave KP in hunt for silver lining

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Indore, November 17: Even while celebrating Gautam Gambhir’s dismissal, Kevin Pietersen had enough reasons to curse himself. The part-timer’s off-break had turned so sharply that it took the Delhi batsman, who was well set at 70, by surprise.

Not fielding off-spinner Graeme Swann was one tactical blunder KP will probably regret as he reflects on the 54-run loss in Indore.

And while he did admit that playing another slow bowler might have been the option, the England skipper also defended his decision of not going for it.

“Playing an extra spinner would have been handy,” Pietersen said in the presentation ceremony, but in the post-match press conference, he explained why England kept the same side. “I didn’t want to change the side, I wanted to give the guys the confidence that they could turn things around,” he said.

“You could say conditions favoured them and if we’d bowled second then it might have been different, but the team we went in with, we thought could win this fixture and be more competitive, and we were today.”

According to Pietersen, it was aggression, and not the extra spinner, that the team were lacking in.

“We certainly got a good start here today, but we probably weren’t aggressive and didn’t carry that through and we probably thought it would just happen for us, which was a mistake.”

On a serious note, he had a few positives to take from the defeat. “We’ve made marked improvements from the first game in Rajkot, where we were totally outplayed,” he said.