We won't be hit for sicks, promises KP

Stuart Broad, Jimmy Anderson, Luke Wright and Ryan Sidebottom all missed the one-run victory over Trinidad because of upset stomachs while Andrew Flintoff did well to get through yesterday's final warm-up game after also succumbing to a bug which had claimed Steve Harmison as a victim earlier this week.

And with Owais Shah and Matt Prior needing treatment for knee and hand injuries respectively, it was just as well that England recruited two emergency fielders in Middlesex pair Dawid Malan and Steven Finn. Both entered the action at various stages before Pietersen's men won a last-ball nail-biter.

"I'm not sure there will be too many missing the bus on Saturday," said the skipper. With around £650,000 a man on offer for beating the Stanford Superstars, it's easy to see where Pietersen is coming from.

But he insisted there would be no problems over people trying to play without a clean bill of health.

"Of course they are going to be honest," he said. "I'm not going to take people on the park who are not fit."

If Saturday's contest goes right to the wire, then Pietersen will do well to look as calm as he did last night before Harmison delivered the last ball with Trinidad needing three runs for victory and two to send the match into a one-over per side shoot-out.

Tailender Ravi Rampaul could only find Shah at third man and there was no chance of anything more than a single once the fielder collected the ball cleanly and returned to Prior. Harmison and Shah had done what was necessary, but then there was not a life-changing amount of cash resting on the outcome.

Pietersen will be pleased when the subject of money is not tied up with almost every question. "Yes, it's a lot of dosh but the longer this week goes on, and everybody makes so much of it, the more you just want to get it over," he said before returning to his more usual theme of his players having a ball.

"Saturday is going to be a great experience for the lads," he stressed. "It will be like the first day of an Ashes Test, the first day of an India Test or our first one-dayer in India next month they are going to be just big games."

If the 'big one' goes to the last ball then Sir Allen Stanford's dream of seeing high drama on his private cricket ground will have come true. But in many ways this week does not deserve a great finish because conditions for Twenty20 cricket have been poor. "The pitch was still not as good as we would have liked," said Pietersen after England had made 141 for six and limited Trinidad to 140 for nine.

The captain's 44 from 30 balls had threatened to see his team post this week's first 150-plus total but they soon lost momentum once he departed.

Then it was a case of keeping the opposition at bay with a sickness-weakened attack. Pietersen followed Trinidad's lead by giving spinner Samit Patel the first over before his second slow bowler, Graeme Swann, did well enough to suggest England will play both tweakers on Saturday.

Pietersen must also hope that last night's improvement in the field, under the Stanford Cricket Ground's inadequate floodlights, will continue. There was still one catch put down, though, with Ian Bell losing a skyer in the deep and while that drop did not prove costly yesterday a similar error this weekend could be sickeningly important.

But Pietersen is not alarmed. He said: "If you're meant to win, you'll win."