Kevin Pietersen insisted England had not made a mistake in picking an unchanged team after slumping to another defeat.

Three days after being hammered by 158 runs in Rajkot, England suffered a 54-run defeat with Yuvraj Singh claiming back-to-back centuries and a haul of four for 28 with his part-time left-arm spin.

"I didn't want to change the side, I wanted to give the guys the confidence to know that they could turn things around," explained captain Pietersen.

"You could say conditions favoured them, 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 another healthy margin of defeat, Pietersen believes England's display at Nehru Stadium was a sign of progress having had India reeling on 29 for three until Yuvraj hit a superb 118 off 122 balls.

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

"We certainly got a good start but we probably weren't aggressive and didn't carry that through, and 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."