England captain Kevin Pietersen blamed a lack of killer instinct in his bowlers and the failure of any of his batsmen to post a big score for the 54-run loss to India on Monday to trail 2-0 in the seven-match, one-day international series.
Yuvraj Singh scored his second successive century to take India from a precarious 29-3 to total 292 from 50 overs. England was dismissed for 238 with six batsmen getting starts of 20 or more but only Owais Shah (58) making a half-century.
"Probably we weren't aggressive and didn't carry that through," Pietersen said of his attack with Pakistan 29-3. "The bowlers tried their hearts out and the batters definitely gave us a good run, but we needed someone to get a big score like Yuvraj did."
Pietersen was still heartened by the improvement after India had posted its biggest limited-overs victory over England on Friday, winning by 158 runs.
"We certainly played good cricket today and were in the game before losing it," he said. "We were totally outplayed in the first game, where we were out of the contest from 30 overs onward. Today's game was a marked improvement on that.
"We want to be competitive in the next couple of games."
Hoping to avoid a repeat of the 2006 series when India beat England 5-1 in one-day internationals, Pietersen justified retaining the same lineup.
"I didn't want to change the side, I wanted to give the guys the confidence to know that they could turn things around," he said.
Before this series, Pietersen had won all four limited-overs internationals in which he had captained England, sweeping South Africa last summer. But his team arrived in India with the batsmen woefully out of form, losing by 10 wickets to a West Indies all-star side that won $20 million in prize-money.
England's batsmen continued to struggle in India, being dismissed for 98 in a humiliating 124-run defeat to a second-string Mumbai XI in a practice game.
India vice captain Virender Sehwag said the host is keen to maintain its momentum ahead of the next game Thursday at Kanpur.
"We're eager to stretch our winning run, for which we'll keep putting pressure on England," Sehwag said.
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