LondonJuly 25: Man-of-the-Match for his unbeaten double century in the first Test against India at Lord’s, Kevin Pietersen feels this is only the beginning of a long and hard series.

In a media interaction after the match, Pietersen spoke about the match, his innings and the upbeat atmosphere in the England dressing room.

Excerpts:

On winning the match

Brilliant for the team, yeah, but we know that it’s only one game out of four and it’s going to be a tough, gruelling task to keep dominating this very good Indian team.

On the special quality of the Test that saw spectators queuing up right through

Definitely, it reminded me of 2005, I think it was Old Trafford, where you clocked in at 8:30 as a player and you could see everybody standing outside. I was driving in at 9 this morning I was really surprised to see so many people standing outside.

On whether he was a more mature player now than in 2005

I’m batting a little higher up the order so I probably have to be. It was fun; I was a bit lucky to bat longer than some of the others but the way Straussy [Andrew Strauss] started, facing 80 balls for 20 [runs], the way Belly [Ian Bell] played, the way Cooky [Alastair Cook] started as well, the way [Jonathan] Trott played, the way [Matt] Prior came in, definitely an unsung hero from that innings. Everybody ate up enough time and enabled the lower order to just score valuable runs.

On his innings being special

Of course, but it wouldn’t have meant anything if we wouldn’t have won. It was just great that the team won today.

On the confidence in the England dressing room

All departments seem to be covered. It is good to see Broady [Stuart Broad] back in the wickets and in the runs. It was a magnificent partnership with Matty [Matt Prior] yesterday. All bases seem to be covered but the one good thing about this team is we never ever sit down and just say we have done enough; we’ll turn up on Wednesday and have a hard training session.