'England take ODIs seriously', insist Flintoff, Pietersen

London, Oct 27 (UNI) The recent poor record notwithstanding, England captain Andrew Flintoff and swashbuckling middle-order bat Kevin Pietersen insist that their team does take one-day cricket seriously and blamed the slump to inexperience in the side.

''I speak for myself and I know I speak for the team -- we are just as interested in one-day cricket. Some of the lads in this team haven't played Test cricket so this is their England team and it's massive,'' Flintoff told 'The Sun'.

''I think people have tried to make it a distraction because almost every question at press conferences seems to be about the Ashes. But I'm equally excited at the chance of playing in another World Cup. Myself and Duncan Fletcher stress the importance of all one-day games and it's unfortunate we haven't fired in this tournament. But it's nothing to do with not caring,'' he added, referring to England's pathetic display in the Champions Trophy, Flintoff's men have crahed out of the tournament following consecutive losses and will be playing only for pride in their last league match against West Indies tomorrow.

Flintoff said the perception that the English treat Test cricket more seriously is a result of them being more successful in the longer version of the game.

''I think the difference is the Test team has been successful for a while. There is a lot of experience in that side and, although we've had a few injuries, we've played together for a while and gained a lot of confidence. The one-day side is more inexperienced and we have some players who have played just a handful of games,'' he said.

Meanwhile, Pietersen, echoing Flintoff's views, said England gave their best in both versions of the game and dismissed criticism that Test cricket was given priority by the defending Ashes champions.

''We go out there and give our best and there are positives we can take out of every game,'' Pietersen told BBC Sport.

''We haven't batted well in the last two knocks but we did in the series against Pakistan. We have game plans but don't seem to have capitalised on them,'' he added.

Pietersen said he was confident of an improvement in England's one-day fortunes before next year's World Cup in West Indies.

''We have another 10 games before the World cup and hopefully we can get a bit more experience under our belts. We are a very inexperienced team -- I've only played about 40-odd games and you've got blokes in other line-ups who have played 200-300 games,'' he pointed out.

''We're not doing as well as we could but with the talent we've got in our side, if a couple of boys play match-winning innings or the bowlers come to grips with what they're doing there's no reason why we can't get pretty far,'' he added.

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