Southampton, Sept 6: Having earned his India cap at the age of 17, at 26 Parthiv Patel is one of the senior cricketers in the side. The absence of regular openers Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag due to injury has opened the doors for the diminutive wicketkeeper-batsman in the ongoing five-match one-day series.

Parthiv’s gutsy knock of 95 in the first ODI at Chester-le-Street boosted the spirits of Indian fans, even though the game was eventually rained out.

“We have to play every ball, whether short-pitched or not,” Parthiv said about his approach to England’s pace bowling.

“We hope we tackle the bowlers in the best possible way and perform well. I had the advantage of watching England bowling in the Test matches, and they obviously planned to bowl short to our batsmen,” he explained while speaking about his 95-run knock.

“Before coming here, I was in the NCA [National Cricket Academy] for seven or eight days working on short balls because I knew if I was going to play, I would be opening the batting. Obviously they will come hard at me with the short balls. But I’ve worked on it. I'm glad I executed those plans in the first game, which is a start, but I want to continue that,” he elaborated.

Speaking about Sachin Tendulkar’s unavailability for the rest of the tour, Parthiv said, “You can’t fill the shoes of Sachin Tendulkar, no matter who you are. So that’s obviously is a big loss to the team. I don't think he has anything to prove [to] anyone at all. His stats speak for themselves.”

And has captain MS Dhoni managed to keep spirits high despite the Test series whitewash?

“The captain always plays a big role, whether he has senior players with him or not. I think he’s done really well to keep the morale high in the dressing room. We had a good chance of winning the first game. His role is always important,” Parthiv said.

Although rain spoiled India’s chances of scoring their first win of the tour at Chester-le-Street, Parthiv feels the ODI series can well be the stage where India turn things around. “The way we started was encouraging,” he observed.

“We are the world champions and we did really well in the West Indies or any ODI series in the recent past. Even in Durham we got 275 and were very well placed with England at 27 for two. Even though we bowled just seven overs, we looked really good to win that game. So hopefully we can try and turn it around [again] [in the second ODI],” Parthiv said.