Kevin Pietersen 'proud' of team as test ends in stalemate

With India happy with what they had already achieved, the second and final Test drifted gently to a draw when Pietersen's men might have been put under pressure one last time before beginning their journey home tonight.

The bottom line is that England have started Pietersen's first winter in charge by losing the Stanford 20 million dollar match in Antigua, losing the one-day internationals in India 5-0 and losing this mini-Test series 1-0 after last week's shattering six-wicket defeat in Chennai.

But Pietersen insists he is leaving here with a real sense of pride after the way his Test team came back to the subcontinent following last month's terror attacks in Mumbai and then stretched opponents who are right at the top of their game at the moment.

"These have probably been the toughest six to eight weeks of my career so far, so to score a hundred like I did yesterday meant a heck of a lot to me," said the England skipper.

"And I feel really proud to be captain of the bunch of guys we brought here. The boys have behaved like great ambassadors, they've been fantastic.

"We can take a lot of positives from these last two weeks because I think we competed really well.

"India are playing fantastic, confident cricket at the moment. But we came close in Chennai and should have given ourselves a better opportunity there on the final day, but Sachin Tendulkar took it away from us.

"The results have not gone our way, but it's not been through lack of effort. The guys have shown a lot of character, they've played with smiles on their faces, they've trained hard and they deserve a good break over Christmas."

If India had been desperate for a win here, the final day would doubtless have followed a different pattern. As it was, home captain Mahendra Dhoni finally decided to take his foot off England's throat by batting until after lunch and leaving the visitors only 43 overs to face.

Pietersen's men did lose Alastair Cook, who edged paceman Ishant Sharma to second slip, but Andrew Strauss and Ian Bell made sure there were no more alarms - taking the total to 64 for one before a half was called an hour ahead of schedule.

For Bell, an unbeaten innings of 24 is neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things. But, having failed on his three previous visits to the crease, the under-pressure Warwickshire batsman looked grateful just to see the job through. Whether it earns him a trip to West Indies early next year remains to be seen, however.

A combination of heavy fog, which delayed start of play by two and half hours, and no obvious sign of urgency from either players or officials to get cracking this morning meant that a draw was the odds of favourite result even before Dhoni made it clear he was more interested in giving Gautam Gambhir and Yuvraj Singh the chance to score centuries than going for another victory.

In the end, both batsmen fell short as India advanced from 134 for four to 251 for seven declared, Yuvraj run out by bell on 86 and Gambhir being caught off Graeme Swann's bowling for 97.

Dhoni had already come and gone for a duck - poking a return catch to Monty Panesar - it was Gambhir's dismissal that finally brought the curtain down on the innings.

After that, all England had to do was avoid an early clatter of wickets and, despite Cook's departure, they succeeded comfortably enough.

There was still a bit of entertainment to come, though, with Pietersen and Yuvraj having a jape on the field as the two teams shook hands.

"It's been fun banter, it's been enjoyable," said Pietersen when asked one more time about his verbal jousts with "pie-chucker" Yuvraj. "He's a special, special talent and one of the cleanest hitters in the game today."