Seeing off new ball key to England's success: Pietersen

England's middle-order maestro Kevin Pietersen on Friday said that "using up as much of the new ball as possible" is part of a team strategy that helps their batsmen in notching up big scores.

"One of the principles our team lives by is using up as much of the new ball as possible. Getting opposition bowlers up to their third, fourth and fifth spells because then we know it will end up with some opportunities for big scores," stated Pietersen, who smashed 175 runs in the team total of 457/3 by the end of second day's play in the fourth and final Test against India.

"It's nice to score around 400 runs in a day and our team is doing it regularly at the moment."

In all the three preceding Tests, England have scored a total of at least 450 runs.

"We know that the longer we bat, the more runs we'll be able to accumulate, the more balls we'll be able to put away."

The team has a formidable top-order, which has Alastair Cook with 19 centuries, Andrew Strauss (19), Ian Bell (16) and Kevin Pietersen (19), all capable of overtaking England's record of 22 tons.

"I don't think we've surprised ourselves, if you look how hard this team has worked in the last two years. The wheel has to turn and we're lucky to be all dovetailing.

"If someone misses out, someone else gets the runs and that's what good teams do. It would be nice to get a record. But I think there are a lot of players in this team who are going to get more than 22 hundreds.

"It's not a competition. It's not a race. It's just a case of winning games for England, getting us into a position where we can win games," Pietersen said.

This was Pietersen's fourth century at The Oval and he termed it "pretty cool".

The tall South Africa born batsman was full of praise for his partner Ian Bell, who is still batting on 181.

"He's been magnificent over the last 12-18 months. He's grown as a person, he's matured so much and I love the fact he's scoring so fluently. He's so pleasing on the eye when he's batting.

"We've contrasting styles. I'm taller, he's shorter. I batted pretty well with Paul Collingwood, the balls he drove were really full balls for me. Balls that I drove were nice punchy balls for Colly. It was pretty similar and long may it continue."