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Pietersen's side were beaten 5-0 in the one-day series and 1-0 in the Tests

England captain Kevin Pietersen heaped praise on his players for returning to India after the Mumbai attacks to complete the two-Test series.

India won the series 1-0 after the second Test in Mohali ended in a draw but England ended the tour with credit.

"I'm really proud to be captain of a bunch of lads who have jumped on a plane to come here and played with smiles on their faces," said Pietersen.

"They've been great ambassadors and can go and have a good Christmas."

Despite losing both the Test and abandoned one-day series, England will be pleased with their overall performance against Test cricket's in-form team.

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Pietersen's men got themselves into a winning position before Sachin Tendulkar almost single-handedly saw India to a six-wicket victory in the first Test, while England looked set to push India all the way in Mohali until the loss of Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff late on day three.

In the end, India batted deep into day five, setting England a victory target of 403 after declaring on 251-7.

The damage was done by Gautam Gambhir (97) and Yuvraj Singh (86), who put on 153 for the fifth wicket.

"We lost 90 overs of this fixture because of the weather but we can take a lot of positives," Pietersen told BBC Radio 5 Live. "This has been a tough and testing couple of weeks of Test cricket.

"We've got ourselves into a position to win fixtures. If you look at the results in the one-dayers, we weren't that far away apart from the first game in Rajkot.

"In the Tests, we should have won the first match and we got ourselves in a good position here. So it's not been that bad.

"We're proud of the lads - the way they've come out here and concentrated on their cricket. They've been really proud to come out here and play cricket again."

The England players now have time to rest and regroup before embarking on a tour to the West Indies in the New Year, the squad to be named on 29 December.

And Pietersen had sympathetic words for batsman Ian Bell, who could be sweating on his place after struggling for form in India.

"When you are not scoring runs you're always worried - as a batsman we play the game to score runs.

"The best thing to do in that situation is relax, back your ability and then go out there and play the ball, hit the ball and keep things simple," Pietersen said.

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