Pietersen promotes positives

Kevin Pietersen wants England to learn © Getty Images

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Kevin Pietersen insists England can shed their “fear of failure” under new one-day captain Paul Collingwood - starting with another crushing defeat of West Indies.

Collingwood has inherited a one-day team ranked seventh in the world - West Indies are the only major nation below them.

But England head into this week’s two NatWest international Twenty20 games and the three one-day internationals in the NatWest Series on the back of a comprehensive 3-0 npower Test series victory.

And Pietersen has demanded England learn from Australia’s merciless approach during the Ashes and keep their foot planted firmly on West Indies throats.

“We have got to get rid of the fear of failure we have carried with us,” said Pietersen, the world’s leading one-day batsman.

“Twenty20s and one-day internationals are a different mind-set but winning becomes a habit. We weren’t shown any sympathy by the Aussies last winter and we won’t show any this week.

Pietersen is driven by winning

“I am driven on by success and entertainment, performing in front of thousands out in the middle and millions on television, and by England winning.

“I was proper hurt by what happened in Australia. Being humiliated is hard but it is something I want to do from now on - to humiliate opposition like we did to the West Indies.

“The most important fixture in that Test series was the last one. We could have settled for 2-0 and thought ‘it’s raining, we have two wins in the bag, we can settle for a draw’.

“But we were relentless. We wanted to win the Test series 3-0. We wanted to crush them and crush them we did. That is how we want to play our cricket.”

Since the World Cup Peter Moores has replaced Duncan Fletcher as coach and Collingwood has succeeded Michael Vaughan as captain.

England showed their class by winning the Commonwealth Bank Series win over Australia earlier in the year but England have chosen two uncapped players for the upcoming internationals.

Warwickshire's Jonathan Trott and Dimitri Mascarenhas from Hampshire are among seven changes to the World Cup line-up.

Pietersen likes the idea of split captaincies on the basis that it freshens things up for the one-day side, and that two leaders can only mean twice the ideas.

“Colly is experienced, he is a good player, he is a likeable man. People respect him and that is what you need as a captain, you need to be approachable,” said Pietersen.

“He has played over 100 one-dayers. He is in the game all the time, he has got a good cricket brain. Colly will get 120% support from me.”

West Indies are also under a new captain in Chris Gayle, who Pietersen is a big fan of, and he expects the tourists to be a tougher nut to crack in the one-day arena than in the Test series.

“The West Indies team are more suited to the one-day format right now,” said Pietersen.

“They have some great entertainers with charisma and passion. I am sure we will see some real good performances from the West Indies.”