PIETERSEN LEFT IN DARK
India go three up as England fail to see the light
ENGLAND captain Kevin Pietersen was frustrated at seeing his side lose out to India by 16 runs on the Duckworth Lewis method in Kanpur today.
With the light fading, the umpires took the teams off 40 overs into India's attempt to reach England's 240.
England are now 3-0 down in the seven-match one-day international series with four to play, and Pietersen was disappointed the remaining nine overs of India's innings could not be bowled.
He said: "It is frustrating. It would have been nice to get a full match in today, but the weather dictated otherwise.
"It was getting dark at 4.30. But the umpires made their decision, and that's the way it is - so we come out on bottom again."
Despite suffering his third successive defeat, Pietersen said there were 'positives' to be drawn from his team's latest performance.
"It's unfortunate to be on the losing side again, but there are definitely areas we improved on. We are getting closer," he said.
"We had a real a good chance of finishing on top. The boys came in, fought hard and showed aggression. When you play for England you play for the badge and you play hard - and today we had a real good go at it and showed real good character."
England were always up against it after being dismissed for a lowly 240 despite winning the toss and deciding to bat first.
Their re-jigged batting line-up failed to exploit the conditions.
Essex's Ravi Bopara was chosen to open alongside Ian Bell and it was a tactic which worked initially as they forged a 79-run opening stand.
But after being well placed for a competitive total on 80 for one after 15 overs, England lost four key wickets to India's spinners.
The new opening partnership struggled against the new ball, but opened up after the eighth over with Bell finally hitting successive boundaries off Munaf Patel.
Their stand was finally broken in the 15th over with Warwickshire batsman Bell, who had raced to 46 off 47 balls, edging Munaf behind as he attempted to open the face of the bat to guide down to third man.
His demise brought captain Kevin Pietersen to the crease as one of the many changes to the line-up, moving himself to his old position and allowing Owais Shah to move back to the middle order.
Position
It was not a change which succeeded with Pietersen falling five overs later attempting to hit Harbhajan Singh over the top only to pick out Zaheer Khan at long off.
Harbhajan, who finished with impressive figures of three for 31 from his 10 overs, struck again in his next over by luring Paul Collingwood forward out of his crease and beating him with the doosra to allow MS Dhoni to complete the stumping.
Bopara had at least adapted to his new position as opener and progressed to 60, his highest one-day international score, before becoming England's fourth wicket to fall in 12 overs when he was also stumped pushing forward to Yuvraj Singh's left-arm spin.
Flintoff also fell to spin, walking across his stumps to fall lbw to Yusuf Pathan's second ball, and without him England added only 21 runs in their four batting powerplay overs and, needing to force the pace without him, they lost five wickets in the final six overs.
All-rounder Flintoff was also at the heart of England's attempt to secure an unlikely victory, claiming a wicket in the first over of each of his three spells to keep India chasing the required Duckworth-Lewis target at the end of each over.
But the batting powerplay, reduced to four overs per side, proved the difference with India hammering 38 to ensure they had a healthy lead over the D/L target and only two overs later the match ended in bad light with England complaining about their fate.
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