Rain keeps England indoors

13:45, Dec 7 2009

England were confined to their hotel again by more bad weather on Monday morning - and Kevin Pietersen admits frustration is mounting among players eager to prepare properly for a "huge series". Net and middle practice is perhaps more important to Pietersen than anyone as he tries to ready himself for next week's opening Test against South Africa at Centurion, barely a month after his first match back from a four-month injury lay-off. "It's been very hit and miss on this tour. I don't think I've been on too many tours where we've actually had two games rained off," said Pietersen. "It's worked in our favour so far, in terms of the results. But we're here to play cricket; we want to play cricket, and it's very frustrating sitting in a hotel room and not being able to go and do what we love." Pietersen has yet to click again with the bat since his return and he knows runs, or at least precious time in the middle, are very important for him this week, with the first of two tour matches against South African Airways XIs scheduled to start on Wednesday. "There are quite a few of us with good experience of international cricket, so we're going to have to draw from that - get our heads right, get our heads round what we can't control," he added. Story continues ADVERTISEMENT "Then when we do get the opportunity to go and train, we make good use of it. "We just want to get cracking with the new balls - the red ball instead of the white now. "It's going to be a huge series for us and a huge one for South Africa. "It will be a very, very tough series for us - being away from home as well - and we just want to get started."

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