Future is bright - Collingwood

22 February 2008

Paul Collingwood

Paul Collingwood is convinced England have the personnel to continue their steady improvement as a one-day side no matter what happens in Saturday’s final match of the series against New Zealand.

The England one-day captain has watched with some pride as his young side picked themselves up from successive defeats at the start of the series to win in Auckland and fight back to earn a tie in Napier.

Their stunning comeback has given them a chance of levelling the series in Saturday’s day-night finale at the AMI Stadium, but whatever the outcome Collingwood is confident about the future.

“Those first two games were a massive reality check for us but sometimes those type of things have to happen in any kind of sport,” he said.

“We’ll learn from that, but I certainly think that the way we’re developing we’re getting better all the time and it would be a great way to finish it off tomorrow by going out there and win the game. Whatever happens, I know this side want to go to the next level and I think we’ve got the players to do it.”

Having exceeded expectations by beating India on home soil and then triumphing in Sri Lanka last year, a drawn series in New Zealand may not be considered by some as maintaining their steady improvement.

But against a side who are ranked the third best one-day side in the world, Collingwood believes a comeback to level the series should be ranked alongside their previous triumphs under his captaincy.

“If we drew this series it would be right up there,” he insisted. “If you’d have given me the opportunity to draw the series after those first couple of games I would have taken it.

Collingwood gets down to some fielding training

Buy this photo

“It’s a great opportunity for us to finish on a real high. We were pretty down after the first two games and I think our last two performances have shown a lot of character so it would be a good turnaround.

“This team have been very honest with themselves. We did a lot of chatting as everyone knows and we wanted to perform a lot better and we’ve come out and done that.

“You learn a lot about the team and the characters and how far you can develop them. In these sort of series you can develop quite a lot because there are games you can learn a lot from.”

England are only expected to consider one change for the series decider with off-spinner Graeme Swann coming into the reckoning again as a possible replacement for Hampshire all-rounder Dimitri Mascarenhas to give Collingwood more bowling options.