Pietersen out for the rest of the series

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Kevin Pietersen is out of England’s tour of Australia after breaking a rib in his side's eight-wicket defeat in the opening match of the Commonwealth Bank Series. Pietersen walked into a short ball from Glenn McGrath late on in his innings of 82, fracturing a bone on the right side of his ribcage. Scans at a local hospital showed the damage and the medical assessment suggests he will be out of action for between three and five weeks. Pietersen, 26, was the one genuine success of England’s dreadful Ashes campaign, scoring 490 runs, and has been the one-day team’s main batsman since making his debut two years ago. England, who will now have to prepare for the World Cup without the world’s No 2-ranked one-day batsman, are set to name a replacement within 24 hours. Pietersen will return home as soon as possible and begin his recuperation ahead of the trip to the Caribbean on March 2. He was hit while on 73 and was left to grimace his way through his final deliveries as England posted 242 for eight. Until then, he had struck the ball cleanly and consistently to hit three sixes but perished when he heaved to deep midwicket off Stuart Clark. Asked to look ahead to the World Cup, however, he remained positive, saying: "We are playing Australia in an era when they are formidable, I'm not sure too many teams can compete. Just look at the rankings. It shows how good these blokes are. "When they turn it on they are hard to beat. But you only have to beat Australia once in the World Cup. You only need to win against them once in the West Indies and that can very easily happen." Michael Vaughan felt the injury to Pietersen, who was out for 82 shortly after being struck, had hampered England's progress towards a more challenging first-innings score. However, he accepted Australia, who won with more than four overs to spare, would probably have chased down a bigger total regardless. He said "I think there are areas we can be happy with; we got ourselves into a good position but unfortunately Kevin picked up an injury and I think that might have added 20 or more runs - but whether that would have been enough I'm not sure. "If they had been asked to chase a few more - 270 on that wicket was probably a par score - they would have made it very difficult for us. They are a very good team, very experienced." After a 5-0 Ashes whitewash and defeat in a Twenty20 match, England's losing streak continued Down Under but Vaughan repeated Pietersen's argument that any team would struggle against this Australia side. "I don't think it is just us. All the teams in the world would like to have three or four of Australia's players but we have to pick the people available for our team." Ricky Ponting lead his side's chase, hitting an unbeaten 82 from 96 deliveries. Afterwards, however, he pointed to importance of his bowlers' performance and of opener Adam Gilchrist's contribution, a 60 off 61 balls.