England captain Kevin Pietersen said his team was very competitive despite losing to India by six wickets in Guwahati.

Pietersen, speaking at the post match presentation said: "I wanted us to be competitive for the rest of the series after the Bangalore loss and I thought we were very competitive on Wednesday."

England piled up 270 runs after being put into bat first by Indian skipper MS Dhoni. Pietersen himself got over his poor run of form, scoring his eighth century but that did not prove to be enough.

"The dew factor played a part. Dhoni knew what he was doing. He put us in after winning the toss and we just had to deal with it."

"Our pacers were struggling to deal with the dew in the evening. India knew they would have faced the same problems had they bowled second."

However, the English captain had said he would have batted in any case after he had won the toss.

Pietersen said Virender Sehwag and Sachin Tendulkar took the game away from the visitors with their dynamic opening partnership.

"Sehwag did us in once again. Tendulkar was great as well. They took the initiative away early on."