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Cricket

Pietersen rues 'missed chances'

17/11/2008

England captain Kevin Pietersen was left to rue his side's 'missed chances' after seeing his side surrender a potentially dominant position before losing the second one-day international against India.

At one point, the tourists had reducing Mahendra Singh Dhoni's side to 29-3 on a pitch with variable bounce and turn and looked like having a chance to skittle the home team out for a low score.

But, just as in the first match of the series in Rajkot, Yuvraj Singh played a starring role with a formidable batting display - scoring a century to set up the 292-9 total and a 54-run victory.

"We had a good start with the ball," said Pietersen.

"We had them at 29-3 and definitely had a chance but we let it slip.

"Yuvraj has played a fantastic game again today - the boy's playing good cricket."

Pietersen was one of England's better batsmen on the day with a solid 33 - opposite fellow big-hitter Andrew Flintoff, who contributed 43 off 35 balls.

And after plodding through the first 20 overs, the skipper called on the top order to provide more of a platform in future matches.

"We need the batsmen to score more runs," he explained.

"One of the top four getting a big score might have made the game a lot closer.

"But we improved from the last game, let's hope we can improve some more."

After going 2-0 down in the seven-match series, England next face India in Kanpur on Thursday needing a win to reduce the deficit.