The pressure is building on Kevin Pietersen but the England captain claimed his side are making progress in India despite suffering a second defeat in the one-day series today.

After losing the first game by 158 runs, England were beaten by 54 runs in Indore, where Yuvraj Singh produced another brilliant man-of-the-match display by scoring 118 and then taking four top wickets with his left-arm spinners.

"We improved from the last game, let's hope we can improve some more," said Pietersen, with the third game coming on Thursday.

"We had a good start with the ball and one of our top four getting a big score would probably have made the game a lot closer."

But whereas India fought favoured India and if we'd bowled second then it might have been different. But the team we went in with, we thought could win this fixture and be more competitive, and we were."

Despite going 2-0 down in the seven-match series, Pietersen believes England's display at Nehru Stadium was a sign of progress having had India reeling on 29 for three until Yuvraj hit 118 off 122 balls.

"We've made a marked improvement from the first game, when we were totally outplayed and were out of it from 30 overs onwards," he said.

"We certainly got a good start here but we probably weren't aggressive enough and didn't carry that through. We probably thought it would just happen for us, which is a mistake.

"The bowlers tried their hearts out and the batters definitely gave us a good run but we needed someone to get a big score like Yuvraj did."