KP hungry for England improvement

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Successive defeats to Australia and South Africa have deflated the optimism surrounding England when they arrived a week ago, fresh from their outstanding NatWest Series triumph over India.

Pietersen said: "There's nothing we can do to change what happened against Australia and South Africa, but hopefully there are a few guys who have learnt from their mistakes, we can build on that and give New Zealand a real run for their money - I'm sure the guys will turn up hungry to win because if we lose tomorrow then we're off."

He added: "It is a day when we all need to turn up and function at 100%."

Since their arrival in South Africa, England only have a win over Zimbabwe to show for their efforts while their spirits were further damaged by wicketkeeper Matt Prior suffering a blow to his right thumb which may force him to miss the match.

Vikram Solanki is favourite to take over should Prior fail his fitness test, but Pietersen is refusing to allow injury concerns deflect him from keeping England in the tournament.

"What we need to do now is win four games and if we do that we win the tournament." he stressed. "It is a huge game for us and it's a game we'll be targeting to hopefully play our best cricket.

"We came into this tournament straight off an aeroplane and two days later we played Zimbabwe and three days after that we played the world champions.

"It's been a pretty tough start for us - in seven days we've played No 1 and 2 in the world and unfortunately been on the receiving end. Hopefully we'll hit our straps tomorrow morning and come out and have to beat India to get a semi-final here in Durban."