KP ready to skipper one-day crunch

Kevin Pietersen says he is confident of guiding England to victory in his first one-day game as captain against New Zealand at Lord's.

The 28-year-old will follow in the footsteps of Tony Greig, Allan Lamb and Andrew Strauss as being a South African-born player to lead England in the fifth and final one-day international after Paul Collingwood's four-match suspension.

Pietersen knows England need to win the match in order to tie the series 2-2, but he insists his captaincy style will be not to get worked up.

"It will be similar to the person I am," he said. "I am going to be calm, pretty chilled and let my instinct, my gut feeling and the brain I've been given work.

"Tactically I think I am pretty sound and aware of certain situations.

"We've played New Zealand for six months now, so you should know pretty much the areas in which people are going to be scoring and the options they're going to have.

"We know our strengths, the weaknesses of the opposition and yes, we are down in the series but we are going to come back and fight hard.

"The main objective is not worrying about me but the team's involvement.

"We want to have a beer together at the end of the game as a bunch of lads, having drawn a series and making sure that the first half of the summer is a really good start."