India threaten to steal the show

Put into bat, India reached 270 for four with Pietersen becoming the first England player to score a one-day international century for 14 matches with an unbeaten 111 off 128 balls.

But England's confidence at being able to end a run of four successive defeats suffered a jolt with Indian openers Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar racing to 105 without loss after just 15 overs of their reply.

Defeats at Rajkot, Indore, Kanpur and Bangalore had convinced the tourists to make changes and they recalled Alastair Cook to take over from Ian Bell at the top of the order, while Steve Harmison replaced James Anderson - yet to claim a wicket in the series. But Cook and Essex team-mate Ravi Bopara struggled for boundaries and both fell inside the first 10 overs.

Left-hander Cook, whose last one-day appearance for England was last summer, fell in the sixth over chasing a wide delivery from Zaheer Khan which was collected by Sachin Tendulkar at slip. Bopara fell four overs later just two balls after being dropped at extra cover when he forced Zaheer straight to backward point, leaving Pietersen and Paul Collingwood to set the platform for a major total.

The 89-run partnership began slowly but began to accelerate just as Collingwood, without a major score previously in the series, fell for 40 when he drove Harbhajan Singh to long-on.

England's hopes of reaching a major total were further undermined when all-rounder Andrew Flintoff fell four balls later, edging Ishant Sharma to slip for a duck.

But Pietersen took command of the situation to ensure there was no repeat of the type of middle order collapses which have plagued England's displays in the previous four matches. He was content to rotate the strike with new batsman Owais Shah and did not seem unduly troubled when the pair were restricted to just 32 runs from the five overs of batting powerplay.

Pietersen finally reached his seventh one-day international century with three overs remaining, bringing up the landmark off 119 balls, with three overs left to claim England's first one-day international century in India for 14 matches. Shah provided useful support and contributed an unbeaten 66 off 57 balls.

But the aggressive intent displayed by Sehwag and Tendulkar, who hit Harmison out of the attack after his first four overs conceded 22 runs, once again left England battling to remain competitive.