India think over their rest options

Yuvraj Singh is expected to shrug off his back complaint and retain his place in India's line-up for the second ODI against England.

Yuvraj Singh winces in pain with back spasms in the first one day international while physio Nitin Patel attends to him in Rajkot on Friday. Yuvraj scored 138 runs in just 78 balls to take that first game away from England.Show less

Yuvraj Singh is expected to shrug off his back complaint and retain his place in India's line-up for the second one-day international against England at Indore. The hard-hitting left-hander - man of the match in India's stunning 158-run success in the opener to the seven-match series at Rajkot on Friday - used a runner for the majority of his brilliant, unbeaten 138 off 78 balls.

He refused to rule himself out of contention for the next match and successfully came through a net session yesterday to boost his chances of playing. But India are unlikely to risk playing the seamer Ishant Sharma - the man of the series in their Test series triumph over Australia, who missed the opening match with an ankle problem. "There's been an improvement in Yuvi, but we'll be looking to rest Ishant for another game," confirmed captain MS Dhoni. "That will give him six to seven days' rest - which should help him a lot."

His counterpart Kevin Pietersen has urged England to stay "mentally strong" as they attempt to battle back from one of their heaviest one-day international defeats in their history. England narrowly escaped suffering the worst one-day defeat of 165 runs against West Indies 14 years ago and against Pakistan at Karachi in 2005. "We are 1-0 down but there are still six games left in the series and we're going to have to be mentally strong to try to come back and hit India hard on Monday," stressed Pietersen.

"There are always concerns when you lose but I'm not stupid enough to think you're going to win every single game as captain. "You're not going to win every game playing for England, Australia, India or anybody so it's all about how you bounce back. The boys are pretty tight as a unit and it's how you bounce back from these sorts of things that shows what you are." The England coach Peter Moores also urged the side to recapture the aggression which served them so well last summer.

"We thought we were a bit tentative in the way we played and could have been more aggressive in everything we did," he explained. "I think we can be more aggressive as a unit and take that into the next game and not wait for the game to take shape - we actually go and make it. "We have to remind ourselves how we play our brand of cricket and play that brand of cricket in different places." The tourists will be aiming to emulate their feat in Sri Lanka, a year ago, when they slumped to a 119-run reverse in the first match but regrouped to win the series 3-2.

There were doubts over the availability of Ryan Sidebottom, though his teammate Paul Collingwood said he had recovered from an Achilles injury he picked up at the start of the Stanford series last month. "Sidebottom is up for contention. He bowled in the nets, he's 100 per cent fit," Collingwood said. * PA Sport