Kevin Pietersen says England have shown they are capable of performing at the highest level even without their star players.
Pietersen says England have depth in squad to succeed
Kevin Pietersen says England have shown they are capable of performing at the highest level even without their star players.
Andrew Flintoff and Pietersen both missed the recent one-day series against West Indies through injury but the latter paid tribute to the team, who successfully filled the void to add a 2-0 win to the earlier Test series victory by the same scoreline.
With several new faces stepping up to the plate, Pietersen argued the squad has plenty of depth to deal with the Australians should any of the key players get injured in the run-up to the Ashes.
"I've actually been quite annoyed when people have said the likes of Ravi (Bopara) are my rivals to counter the Australians," he said.
"I am with Ravi all day every day, I love the bloke, his confidence, the way he plays without fear, the way he talks about things and the way he doesn't worry - I love his approach and it's something a lot of the players can learn from.
Exceptional
"(Stuart) Broad has been exceptional, Matty Prior is somebody who has improved so much as well and James Anderson produced a brilliant display at Durham the other day - I don't care who you are, you're not playing that sort of bowling well.
"England are not relying on one or two players.
"If you look at Australia during their good times, if (Matthew) Hayden didn't perform, (Adam) Gilchrist did, and the best thing about what's happening now is that if I fail like I did when I got a first-baller at Lord's, we still got a decent total."
England have won just seven of their 15 Twenty20 Internationals but Pietersen believes the upcoming ICC World Twenty20 is their big chance to put things right.
"I figure the only way to improve is to play more Twenty20 cricket," he said.
"There is talk about a second IPL, the Champions League, these are the kind of tournaments all the players around the world are playing in and they are fundamental in making England players better Twenty20 players.
"England have never won a world tournament so this is huge for us and we're taking it very seriously, but I think a lot of us are behind the Indian players and the South Africans because we haven't played as much T20 cricket so we're going to have to be on our ball but we can beat them."
