Nottingham, July 28: Filling in the shoes of the mighty Virender Sehwag could drive any batsman to distraction. But India’s latest Test entrant, Abhinav Mukund seems quietly confident of doing the job for India at the top of the order. Speaking after a practice session ahead of the second Test at Trent Bridge, Mukund spoke about India’s bowling attack, his first innings score of 49 and Sehwag.

Excerpts from the interaction:

On India’s pace attack

Zaheer [Khan] has been our strike bowler for a long time but Ishant [Sharma] has been doing well - he was the Man-of-the-Series in the West Indies; Praveen Kumar has just taken five wickets and [S] Sreesanth is waiting in the wings. It is not that we have a depleted attack.

On the encouragement from the seniors in the side

A pat on the back from someone like Sachin [Tendulkar] can do a lot of good to anyone’s confidence. Spending so much time in the Indian dressing room and to be a part of this set-up, you learn every day. Even in the nets there are so many people you can look up to. I’ve definitely improved over the past few months and I am looking forward to [going on] improving.

On coming back strong after the defeat at Lord’s

Obviously we are all disappointed. But there are a lot of good things we can take from the last game. It’s a four-match series and we don’t want to look back. We just want to take the positives and move on to the next game.

We have come here to take up the challenge and we’ll definitely give it a good fight.

Being the world number one, the Indian team has conquered a lot of challenges on the way here.

On needing to make an impact quickly, considering Sehwag’s imminent return

I don't want to replace Sehwag. He is one of the greatest openers that India has had and I know it's impossible to play like him. I just want to play my own game. If it comes off, it will help the team.

On scoring 49 in the first innings of the first Test against England

I know I haven't converted my starts. But a couple of my knocks have given me a lot of confidence. England has a very good attack and personally I'm looking to take it up as a challenge. I'm very disappointed that I got starts at Lord's but didn't carry on. But I can take confidence into the next Test.