Michael Vaughan: 'I hope people have seen that this team is prepared to fight'

Michael Vaughan was sanguine after England's gutsy draw in the third Test. The series, after all, was lost.

"It's disappointing to lose the series," said the England captain. "But there are series that you lose when you know that you have played some really bad cricket and there are series that you lose like this one when you think, 'We haven't played that badly'.

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"We have been up against a very good India team. I hope we will have learnt from playing against this side. We have all been asked different questions when we have batted, about the angle at which we have had to face the left-armers. That is something that we have not seen before," Vaughan said.

"Our bowlers have been asked to bowl at some of the best batsmen to have played the game and have done so with flying colours."

But he acknowledged that India had been the better side. "In a three-match series it is the team that plays the better cricket which wins, but the last two days here most people were expecting England to lie down and for India to win the series 2-0.

"I hope people have seen that the England side are prepared to fight. Today was a big one to see if we could show character and we have done that."

He also agreed with Rahul Dravid, his opposite number, over whether India should have enforced the follow-on. "I would have done exactly the same. They were 1-0 up and wanted to make sure they won the series," he said.

Dravid said: "There will be different opinions as to what is wise and what is not wise. As captain I know my team quite well and the workload my bowlers have gone through. It was the third Test match and we played the same team all the way through the series.

"Maybe if I was sitting in a living room somewhere I might have done something else. But I have to back my judgement. I thought pushing my boys through that would not be the right thing to do."

That England managed to save face and the game was down, in part, to Kevin Pietersen, who scored the 10th Test hundred of his career and his second at The Oval. "I was really happy to get to double figures, 10 is good, but I want a lot more, so we will have to keep working hard," Pietersen said.