Players face mental battle

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The England captain has just two days to conduct an inquest into his side's 158-run defeat in the opener to the seven-match one-day series before they face India again at Indore on Monday.

"We're 1-0 down but there's still six games left in the series and we're going to have to be mentally strong to try and come back and hit India hard on Monday," stressed Pietersen.

"There are always concerns when you lose but I'm not stupid enough to think you're going to win every single game as captain.

"You've not going to win every game playing for England, Australia, India or anybody so it's all about how you bounce back. The boys are pretty tight as a unit and it's how you bounce back from these sorts of things that shows what you are."

England will certainly question why their attack rarely troubled India's batsmen as they raced to a daunting total of 387 for five, which included a brilliant unbeaten 138 off 78 balls from Yuvraj Singh.

They will also wonder why, on the same pitch they lost four wickets in the first 11 overs of their reply before subsiding to 229 all out in just 37.4 overs and Pietersen added: "There are areas in our fielding, batting and bowling that we can improve on."

Having granted Yuvraj a runner after he complained of back trouble during Friday's defeat - which did not prevent him hitting 15 fours and six sixes - England may be surprised to learn he has not yet ruled himself out of contention for Monday.

"I wasn't surprised they gave me a runner because it was an injury from the match - I wasn't carrying the injury into the match," said Yuvraj.

"I was struggling with the pain so it was good to have a runner. We'll have to assess whether I will be fit for Monday but I'm looking forward to it."