England will look to salvage pride: Swann

After the 0-5 whitewash against India, a resilient England would look to salvage some pride when they take on the hosts in the one-off Twenty20 match in Kolkata on Saturday, stand-in skipper Graeme Swann said on Friday.

Swann is captaining the side in the absence of the injured Stuart Broad. The 32-year-old had led England against the West Indies for a 1-1 result in the two-match series last month and said he was looking forward to the job again.

"I am looking forward to captain again. It's been a month or so when I was the captain of the side. It's been good fun. It's chance for us to salvage a bit of pride. It's chance for me to get my hands on the game as a leader," Swann said on the eve of the match here at the Eden Gardens.

On the humiliating one-day series loss, the off-spinner said: "It's very nice that the five-match series has finished. We can actually focus on T20 cricket. Sometime change is good. Everyone is positive, we are looking forward to it. The spirit is quite good. It's a very resilient England squad. I would say we were very gracious in defeat. We had to be..."

Swann said the one-off match would be a battle between two top Twenty20 teams as both the sides are previous World Champions in this format.

"We are the current T20 champions. It will be a battle between the current versus the previous T20 champions, the two top T20 sides in the world. It will be a nice chance to draw a line against the fifty over series. We will look to approach the game with freshness."

The Twenty20 skipper feels there is a need to have more T20 matches during a tour.

"We don't play enough of this format of the game. It maybe the future of one-day cricket but I look forward to the time when every tour has at least a three-match Twenty20 series," Swann said.

The Eden Gardens strip had drawn sharp criticism from India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni who termed it an ugly looking wicket and Swann too echoed the same views on Friday.

"It's a strange looking wicket. It's very dry and very bare. Not surprising considering the way we have played spin on the tour. Must not really surprise why we did not handle the Indian spinners well. We can expect a low scoring match," he said.

Asked about his bowling, Swann said: "I have disappointed with the way I bowled. I've not bowled as well as I would have hoped."