Intro:

At Lord's in London on Wednesday, Test and One-Day captain Alastair Cook spoke about Kevin Pietersen's return to the England fold and dealing with India's spinners during their upcoming winter tour.

Script:

SOUNDBITE (English) Alastair Cook, England Test and ODI captain:
(On Kevin Pietersen)
"You know, we are very confident - otherwise he wouldn't have been added into the side - that he can fit into the team, and the team are very confident that it all can work well. Clearly we know how important team spirit is, and team harmony, because over the last couple of years that's where all our strength has been, and it shows in the results we get. So we know how hard we have to work at that to make sure that we continue on that front so that the results… won't exactly look after themselves… but give us the best chance to get a good result. So we know how important it is, and we'll be working as hard as we can over the next coming months to make sure that we get that team in that spirit that we know makes us perform well."

SOUNDBITE (English) Alastair Cook, England Test and ODI captain
(On Pietersen)
"Look, clearly it's been a difficult two months for us as an England side but, you know, for me as a captain I think the best possible outcome has happened, we've got a world-class player back in our team. It's been a tough couple of months for Kevin but he seems very contrite and he's desperate to be back playing, doing what he does best, which is scoring runs for England - and as a captain, that's all I want. I want him to come back in the side as he was, scoring match-winning runs like he did in Colombo, like he did at Headingley - and I'm sure he'll be desperately keen to do that."

SOUNDBITE (English) Alastair Cook, England Test and ODI captain:
"You know, we know how important playing spin is. We did struggle (with spin) in the U.A.E. but I think the amount of work we did towards the latter part of that tour, and the work we did in Sri Lanka - we need to get as close to that point as soon as we can on the tour and build from there because we know how important playing spin is there and how important first-innings runs are."