Paul Collingwood is made entirely out of balls. It must be downright murder to walk, eat or do pretty much anything. To get a hundred in what seemed likely to be your last Test innings is one thing. To do it with a six is quite another.

Kevin Pietersen was caught by mid-on trying to reach his hundred with a six. Collingwood learnt from that mistake. The key is to middle it. Whoosh. 100. It was a similar shot to the one that took him to 200 against Australia.

He’s gritty, they say. He’s a fighter. He’s a scrapper. He’s got character. Normally the emphasis is on what’s not being said. He hasn’t got any real talent is the subtext. We’ve all come to hear only that subtext, but after an innings like that you remember that all those adjectives do actually apply.

Hope he shovels a few more runs today.

England v South Africa, third Test at Edgbaston, day one
England 231 all out (Alastair Cook 76, Ian Bell 50, Jacques Kallis 3-31, Andre Nel 3-47)
South Africa 314 all out (Neil McKenzie 72, Jacques Kallis 64, Andrew Flintoff 4-89, James Anderson 3-72, Ryan Sidebottom 3-81)
England 297-6 (Paul Collingwood 101 not out, Kevin Pietersen 94)

Tags: England, Paul Collingwood, South Africa by King Cricket
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Shove Michael Vaughan down to number six - that’s where England keep their worst batsman.

Paul Collingwood seems likely to lose his place. He has another innings, but does he honestly look like a man who’ll make use of it? It’s the latest chapter in England’s number six saga and after Tim Ambrose’s brief appearance in the slot, the chapters are getting shorter.

Where other nations value their number six batsman, England use it as a dumping ground for the newest arrival to the team, the most likely departure from it, or, in the case of Ambrose, whoever’s left over.

South Africa have vehement letter C denier, AB de Villiers, batting at six. India have VVS Laxman. India’s number sixes have averaged 13 runs more than England’s since 2000. Even Bangladesh’s average more and you’re not even supposed to include Bangladesh when you talk about Test cricket, because it’s an unwritten rule that they don’t count.

Vaughan won’t move to six, because he’ll see it as a demotion, but that’s because of the way England treat the slot. If number six weren’t such a tainted limbo, maybe the fall of the fourth wicket wouldn’t send such shockwaves through the side and maybe the earlier batsmen wouldn’t live in constant fear of that.

England v South Africa, third Test at Edgbaston, day one
England 231 all out (Alastair Cook 76, Ian Bell 50, Jacques Kallis 3-31, Andre Nel 3-47)
South Africa 38-1

Tags: England, Michael Vaughan, Paul Collingwood, South Africa by King Cricket
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We like a bit of ruthlessness, but there’s a fairly clear line between ‘ruthlessness’ and ‘being a dick’. We call it the ‘being a dick line’ and we always try and stay the right side of it. England didn’t.

Ryan Sidebottom went after the ball and inadvertently decked Grant Elliott who was in the process of taking a quick single. While Elliott writhed around with a suspected broken spine, England ran him out.

At this point, everyone felt a bit uncomfortable, so the umpires rather generously said to Paul Collingwood: “Er, are you sure?” Paul Collingwood said ‘yes’.

Then the umpires said: “No, no, Paul, you’re not getting us. Are you… sure?” while raising their eyebrows and looking him straight in the eye.

Paul Collingwood said ‘yes’.

Then, later on, once England had lost and New Zealand were a bit calmer, Paul Collingwood went into the Kiwi dressing room and apologised. Then Daniel Vettori told some lies about how they’d forgiven Collingwood because he’d had the decency to apologise.

Then everyone pretended nothing had happened. Of course in the fifth one-day international New Zealand will appeal after every ball Collingwood faces.

Tags: England, New Zealand, Paul Collingwood by King Cricket
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Unlike players in some other sports, cricketers quite often talk sense. They’re even capable of being interesting. That said, there have been some pretty ordinary thoughts expressed about this whole Stanford Twenty20 thing and about the IPL as well.

Monty Panesar’s a bright guy, but his comments are fairly typical: “Test cricket has always been the ultimate dream for every cricketer - that’s still going to be the number one.”

This is the kind of mindless blanditude most players have come out with when asked about the impact of Twenty20 on Test cricket. Is that really the case Monty? Why? Why should that situation persist just because it always has done?

Paul Collingwood yesterday offered a more considered opinion: “Twenty20’s blowing everything out of the water, but we must decide what we want in the future. The big picture is if Test cricket is going downhill because of it. We’ve got to keep Tests in the forefront.”

This is a man who’s in danger of being dropped from the Test team, but who as one-day captain is virtually guaranteed his Twenty20 place. It would be quite easy for him to spout the ‘great for cricket’ line, but no - this is a man who loves cricket and is worried about its future.

He goes on to say: “When I was a kid, all I thought about was playing in the World Cup or winning the Ashes. We don’t want kids growing up just dreaming about winning Stanford matches to earn some money or playing in the Indian Premier League. That dream is a massive thing for kids.”

He then finishes off by acknowledging that players might be economical with the truth about their level of fitness when there’s such money at stake.

We like Paul Collingwood. Paul Collingwood lives in the real world.

Tags: England, Paul Collingwood by King Cricket
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Winning a Test by an innings is not to be sniffed at. What exactly would you expect to smell? England didn’t exactly dominate the series like they dominated this last match though.

Overall, the team looks okay, but there are quite a few flaws, the most glaring of which is the middle order batting of Bell and Collingwood.

Ian Bell looked like England’s best batsman in Sri Lanka but didn’t really influence proceedings. In New Zealand he hit a hundred when it was least needed. In this series he’s been virtually absent.

Bell will stay, but Paul Collingwood is currently Mark Knopfler (he’s in Dire Straits). Like Bell he’s rather prone to the ineffectual fifty. He’s not been dreadful until this series and if he does get dropped it’ll be for a lack of hundreds.

We can’t escape the feeling that Tim Ambrose isn’t ‘the answer’ either.

England v New Zealand, third Test at Trent Bridge, day four
England 364 (Kevin Pietersen 115, Tim Ambrose 67, Stuart Broad 64, Iain O’Brien 4-74, Kyle Mills 3-76)
New Zealand 123 (James Anderson 7-43)
New Zealand 232 (Brendon McCullum 71, Jacob Oram 50, Ryan Sidebottom 6-67)
England win and take the series 2-0

Tags: England, Ian Bell, New Zealand, Paul Collingwood by King Cricket
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We all know how important it is to look to the positives. England’s players and coaches have taught us this for years now.

Ian Bell batted at five and made a three-ball duck. Paul Collingwood batted at six and made a four-ball duck.

England’s middle order batsmen are making tangible progress in terms of occupation of the crease.

Well played England!

Tags: England, Ian Bell, New Zealand, Paul Collingwood by King Cricket
15 Comments »

Paul Collingwood, a man of incomparable aceness right now - in fact a man so ace he’s forcing full-grown men to write like 11-year-olds - hit England’s fastest ever fifty at some point in the recent past.

Hitting England’s fastest ever fifty is a bit like being Australia’s most debonair slaughterhouse worker, but being as Collingwood only took 24 balls to reach the mark, maybe we should all keep our eyes peeled for bon-viveur moustache-twirlers amidst the gore of Bendigo abattoirs.

To Paul Collingwood! [Raises empty glass and realises it’s time to stop writing about things from the past that are to be published in the future in favour of more pressing matters.]

New Zealand v England, fourth one-day international at Napier
England 340-6 (Phil Mustard 83, Alastair Cook 69, Paul Collingwood 54, Kevin Pietersen 50)
New Zealand 340-7 (Jamie How 139, Brendon McCullum 58)
Match tied.

Tags: England, New Zealand, Paul Collingwood by King Cricket
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An excellent all-round performance from Paul Collingwood: 3-43 with the ball and 70 not out off 50 balls. If it were Andrew Flintoff with those figures, everyone’d be giggling, dribbling and getting all rambunctious. They’d be saying ‘bring on the Aussies’ like morons due to the lack of blood supply to their brains.

But it wasn’t Andrew Flintoff. It was Paul Collingwood. So instead everyone’s just saying ‘they’ll probably lose the next one’.

Paul Collingwood’s great. Not every pitch suits his bowling, but when he’s an option he bowls that brand of ’slow, slower, slowest, QUICK ONE’ bowling that’s served one-day bowlers so well for years. And he bowls it well.

When batting, his default approach is to plonk the ball into gaps and sprint to the other end, but he’s got another gear as well, which he showed at the death today. A lot of batsmen pace their innings so that they gradually increase their scoring rate. Paul Collingwood seems to just flick a switch. ‘Enable boundary-hitting’.

He’s done it often enough now that it shouldn’t be at all a surprise, but he’s still not seen as an aggressive batsman. Perhaps it’s because he can actually play in another way as well - to be an aggressive batsman do you have to be an out-and-out slogger? Today saw Paul Collingwood’s 37th, 38th and 39th sixes in one-day internationals anyway.

It was a day for all-round captains all-round. Daniel Vettori hit 42 off 35 balls and took 2-23 off ten. That shouldn’t be a performance in defeat, but it was, because of Paul Collingwood’s gingerial splendour.

England’s all-rounder is a man of steadfast bits and exceptional pieces these days.

New Zealand v England, third one-day international at Auckland
New Zealand 234-9 (Jacob Oram 88, Stuart Broad 3-32, Paul Collingwood 3-43)
England 229-4 (Ian Bell 73, Paul Collingwood 70)
England win as a result of Duckworth-Lewis calculations

Tags: England, New Zealand, Paul Collingwood by King Cricket
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We really like Twenty20, but it can be difficult to report on. It’s more difficult to identify that one, stand-out performance from a player.

Twenty20’s more of a team game than you might think. With only 20 overs, it makes sense that one big innings from a batsman decides the match, but quite often it doesn’t work like that. Even if there is a big innings, it’s not necessarily the most influential.

With scores being closer, outfielders have a greater influence than they do in other forms of the game and we’ve written before about the value of the Twenty20 wicketkeeper. Conversely, bowlers only get four measly overs with which to make an impact.

So you can get a bit sick of writing about the batsmen and as we said, it can be hard to identify that day’s hero anyway. For example, in today’s match between New Zealand and England, Owais Shah hit 47 off 35 balls, but was that really any better than Phil Mustard’s 40 off 24?

Thankfully it’s Paul Collingwood to the rescue, like a ginger superhero boasting special powers like ‘doggedness’ and ‘a strong work ethic’. Paul’s 54 off 28 balls was the biggest innings as well as being the quickest of those that lasted more than a few balls. Plus, we really like Paul Collingwood so we try and write about him when we can, anyway.

Tags: England, New Zealand, Paul Collingwood by King Cricket
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Because if you’ve got a fragile batting line-up, paper is the greatest disguise. You can conceal all manner of batting sins through judicious use of paper.

England’s batting folded at Old Trafford but they got away with it. It happened at Headingley and they didn’t. Paul Collingwood’s innings of 91 not out off 71 balls was a desperate one from a top one-day player, but he was never going to get England home alone.

England are definitely improving, but you still don’t feel confident when they bat. India’s top four all made fifties. England’s managed 4, 46, 44 and 0, which isn’t really good enough.

We’re still not convinced about Matt Prior as an opener. We don’t think he likes it. He should play, but maybe bat at seven. The question then is who opens?

England want quick runs from their other opener, with Alastair Cook nominally playing the long innings. Perhaps Ravi Bopara might fit the role, although he seems to be developing into the next Paul Collingwood - a canny run-chaser.

A bit of form from Kevin Pietersen would help immensely, of course.

England v India, fifth one-day international at Headingley
India 324-6 (Yuvraj Singh 72, Sachin Tendulkar 71, Sourav Ganguly 59, Gautam Gambhir 51)
England 242-8 (Paul Collingwood 91)
England lost following a Duckworth-Lewis calculation

Tags: England, India, Paul Collingwood by King Cricket
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