Birmingham, Aug 13: Flamboyant England batsman Kevin Pietersen spoke to the media about England’s journey to the No. 1 position in Tests after the side registered an emphatic win over India in the third Test to take an unassailable 3-0 lead in the four-match series.

Excerpts from the interview:

On how it feels to be the best in the world

It’s a nice feeling, yeah, it certainly is. The rankings only get rearranged at the end of the fourth Test match. At the moment we are only 3-0 up in the four-match series; we are going to win 4-0.

On whether it all started at Lord’s or a few years back

It started a few years back. We set a benchmark at [the] CB [series] that we want to be the best team in the world. At the moment we have achieved it but there is nowhere else you can go but downhill from here and we don’t want do that, so we want to keep improving.

On whether England’s challenge from here on would be to keep improving, giving preference to the longest format

Well, I don’t know about preference to the longest format; that’s always hard because we have got three different captains. But yeah, it’s a case to ensure that we maintain that status. We have got some very hard Test match cricket coming up for which we need to keep our eye on the ball, certainly.

On whether he was a bit surprised at the level of challenge that India presented considering their No. 1 status going into the series

Not at all, no; obviously [India] have missed Zaheer [Khan] in the series. He is a phenomenal bowler but at the end of the day I think people should be talking about how good this England team is, how good the batters are, how good our wicketkeeper is and how good our bowlers are. We are a pretty formidable team at the moment and as long as we keep improving, wanting to improve and stay grounded, there is no reason why we can’t do this for a long time.

On Alastair Cook’s knock

It’s a great knock, absolutely fantastic. In terms of the circumstances of the fixture, phenomenal.

On whether it was special to not allow the Indian team, comprising of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman, to reach 300 runs

It’s testament to how good our bowling attack is, really.

On the learnings from the series so far

In terms of learnings, we keep that pretty much in house. We know what we are doing and we concentrate on ourselves and we look to improve and we know as players, as [Andrew] Strauss said after the second Test, if we improve, we can win by bigger margins and there is no reason why we can’t do that at the Oval.