Kevin Pietersen was not at his best with the bat, after picking up a quad strain in the field © Getty Images Enlarge
Related Links Players/Officials: Kevin Pietersen | Andrew Strauss | Shaun Tait Matches: England v Australia at Lord's Series/Tournaments: Australia tour of England and Ireland Teams: Australia | England

To cap a day when the feel-good factor surrounding the England team was dented by another hefty defeat against Australia, Kevin Pietersen suffered a thigh injury which makes him unlikely to face Bangladesh in the first one-day international at Trent Bridge on Thursday.

Pietersen picked up the problem in the field and required a runner when he came out to bat at No. 6, but was soon bowled by Steven Smith for a duck to complete a lean series in which he made 95 runs in five innings. Although he has yet to be ruled out of the entire three-match series against Bangladesh, the selectors are going to need cover in the squad when it is announced on Sunday morning.

"He's got a quad strain, so it's probably unlikely he'll be fit," said England's captain, Andrew Strauss. "But we're not going to rule him out completely at this stage."

Pietersen's likely absence should mean a chance for Ian Bell to reclaim the one-day spot that he vacated in India in November 2008, while Ravi Bopara could be drafted into the squad as extra batting cover. England will be expected to dominate the contests against Bangladesh, who fell to a 149-run defeat against Sussex in their opening warm-up game, but the final two matches against Australia show the side still has work to do to be a consistently dominant force.

"We are disappointed we lost the last two, because we were in a good position to really assert some supremacy over Australia," Strauss said. "We weren't able to do that. But we won the series, and that's something the guys should be very proud of. Beating the No. 1 team in the world in a five-match series is a great achievement, and we shouldn't lose sight of that."

Although it was Shaun Tait's express pace that lit up the day at Lord's, Strauss pinpointed Australia's late surge with the bat as the defining moment of the contest with the visitors taking 130 off their final 11 overs, mainly through Shaun Marsh and Mike Hussey who added 107 for the fifth wicket.

"They got some momentum very early in the Powerplay, and then it is always hard to stop that," Strauss said. "Those last 10 or 11 overs were a big momentum swing. We'd done a really good restricting job up to the 39th over; then they managed to wrestle that momentum away from us."