England can improve, warns Collingwood

LONDON – Paul Collingwood believes England can improve on their stunning display against Australia in the first match of a three-game one-day international series this week.

England achieved one of their biggest wins over the world champions on Thursday with a nine-wicket victory at Headingley. That triumph followed a stunning comeback in Saturday’s Triangular Series final at Lord’s when England recovered from 33 for five to claim a tie off the last ball and continue their run of success against Australia.But Durham all-rounder Collingwood, who claimed four for 34 during Thursday’s victory, believes there is a lot more to come from England’s developing line-up as they build up to the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies.”Winning has given us a lot of confidence and we know we’re heading in the right direction, but we also know as a team we’re 20 per cent off,” said Collingwood.”We’re still not playing excellent cricket.”There are still areas of the game when we’re not quite on the ball, there are little things here and there that we still need to improve on and we realise that.”There’s still a long way to go, but we can improve and the good thing about this team is that we’re winning and we can still improve.”One of the major strides forward made by England over the last year has been to end their five-year losing streak against Australia, which spanned 14 matches and came to a halt in last season’s ICC Champions Trophy semi-final.England failed to lift the trophy after losing to West Indies in the final, but Collingwood believes the semi-final victory was a big factor in their development as a side.”Last year’s game in the ICC Trophy was a bit of a hurdle to get over, but it was no surprise to us either,” he claimed.”We came out to win these games and we believed we could win from the start and to beat them is not a surprise to us.”The ICC game was important because we hadn’t beaten them in one-day cricket for such a long time.That was when we realised we could beat Australia and this year has been a progression from what we’ve done over the last couple of years, winning in West Indies and going to South Africa and winning the Test series there.”We’ve put Australia under a lot of pressure and I think you’ve got to give us a bit of credit for the way they’re performing.They’re all great players, but they can be beaten and that’s the way we’ve approached it,š he said.- Nampa-AFPThat triumph followed a stunning comeback in Saturday’s Triangular Series final at Lord’s when England recovered from 33 for five to claim a tie off the last ball and continue their run of success against Australia.But Durham all-rounder Collingwood, who claimed four for 34 during Thursday’s victory, believes there is a lot more to come from England’s developing line-up as they build up to the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies.”Winning has given us a lot of confidence and we know we’re heading in the right direction, but we also know as a team we’re 20 per cent off,” said Collingwood.”We’re still not playing excellent cricket.”There are still areas of the game when we’re not quite on the ball, there are little things here and there that we still need to improve on and we realise that.”There’s still a long way to go, but we can improve and the good thing about this team is that we’re winning and we can still improve.”One of the major strides forward made by England over the last year has been to end their five-year losing streak against Australia, which spanned 14 matches and came to a halt in last season’s ICC Champions Trophy semi-final.England failed to lift the trophy after losing to West Indies in the final, but Collingwood believes the semi-final victory was a big factor in their development as a side.”Last year’s game in the ICC Trophy was a bit of a hurdle to get over, but it was no surprise to us either,” he claimed.”We came out to win these games and we believed we could win from the start and to beat them is not a surprise to us.”The ICC game was important because we hadn’t beaten them in one-day cricket for such a long time.That was when we realised we could beat Australia and this year has been a progression from what we’ve done over the last couple of years, winning in West Indies and going to South Africa and winning the Test series there.”We’ve put Australia under a lot of pressure and I think you’ve got to give us a bit of credit for the way they’re performing.They’re all great players, but they can be beaten and that’s the way we’ve approached it,š he said.- Nampa-AFP