Captain quick to warn of backlash

Paul Collingwood is under no illusions about the Kiwis' ability to surprise opponents

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Paul Collingwood will sit down with England’s one-day squad in Durham later today and warn them about a possible New Zealand backlash following a convincing victory in the NatWest Twenty20 international at Old Trafford.

England romped to a nine-wicket victory with 15 balls to spare with Ian Bell winning the man-of-the-match award for a superb unbeaten 60 off only 46 balls last night.

It was a comprehensive victory only 48 hours after England’s players learned of the riches ahead of them in the annual match against a West Indies all-stars XI in Antigua bankrolled by Sir Allen Stanford’s millions.

But one-day captain Collingwood will ask his squad to think back just a few months to England’s convincing Twenty20 victories in Auckland and Christchurch - which were followed by an equally emphatic 3-1 defeat in the one-day series.

As England prepare for the start of the five-match NatWest one-day series at Chester-le-Street starting tomorrow, he stressed: “We all know what happened in New Zealand after the Twenty20s.

“That’s the first thing I will be saying to the boys: ‘don’t get carried away with this result’.

“It was an amazing performance, but it means nothing for the one-dayers.

"We know we’ve got five tough games against them but hopefully we can keep similar sort of standards and put them under pressure like we did last night.”

Unlike in Twenty20 cricket, where New Zealand have suffered seven successive defeats, they are rated number three in the world in the 50-over game.

Jacob Oram's absence could be key to the series outcome

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Even without the likely participation of all-rounder Jacob Oram, who was ruled out of yesterday’s match with a hamstring strain that could put him out for the whole one-day series, Collingwood believes New Zealand are a formidable side.

But he also believes he is in charge of a developing side, one that was strong enough to rest leading seamer Ryan Sidebottom for last night’s encounter.

“We’re improving as a one-day side,” he claimed. “Our skills are getting a lot better. We’re getting more and more experience of when to use those skills but the work ethic over the past year has been great.

“There’s been no question that the boys are just wanting to learn all the time. We’re very happy with how we are developing, we just want to get results and obviously that breeds confidence and we want to continue in that vein.”

New Zealand must now attempt to pick themselves up from a Test series defeat and a convincing Twenty20 loss, probably without Oram, their leading all-rounder.
“It’s a huge blow to us because he’s one of the best all-rounders in the world so any time you lose him makes it tough to recover from it,” admitted captain Daniel Vettori.

“I think he’s out for about seven to 10 days so he could be a struggle for the rest of the series, but when you’re presented with situations like that you expect one or two guys to pick it up and no-one did that and that was the problem.

“He’s very disappointed because he targeted this series as an opportunity to show how good a player he is. He works pretty hard so it’s frustrating for him.”