CRICKET: It is not many weeks since Paul Collingwood was summoned from Melbourne grade cricket to stand by for his debut in the third Test. The selection was greeted locally with some derision: a clubby in the Test? How low can the side go?
So his maiden international century yesterday afternoon, one of the most accomplished scored by an England batsman for some while in limited-overs cricket and a diamond among the costume jewellery on display, goes some way to rectifying the misapprehension. The boy can play.
The Durham batsman, who earlier this winter lost his place in the side through injury in Sri Lanka, made 100 before being dismissed from the last ball of England's innings as Sri Lanka, fingers utterly butterly, contrived to produce a display of fielding that bordered on the comical.
Asked to make 259 to win, the Sri Lankans were never in the game once they had lost four wickets inside the first dozen overs of their reply, three of them to Andy Caddick before he limped off with a twisted ankle.
The 40-plus degree heat, with a wind like a fan-assisted oven, did not suit the intensity that limited- overs cricket demands.
It showed too, England completing their second successive win over Sri Lanka by 95 runs - a margin comfortable enough to give them a maximum six points and elevate them to the unaccustomed heady heights of table-topping Poms - but lacking lustre with careless batting and sloppy ground fielding.
These things, as Nasser Hussain is sufficiently clued up to appreciate, are relative. His side bowled well enough on the bounciest pitch in the game to ensure that Sri Lanka would have a rough time of chasing the target to register their first win.
Collingwood got them out of jail at a time when the innings appeared on the point of collapse against aggressive bowling from Chaminda Vaas and the fierce Dilhara Fernando.
Missed in straightforward fashion by Thilan Samaraweera at slip when 11 having got off the mark with a four and a six, he demonstrated a level of composure and common sense not exhibited by his colleagues until a seventh-wicket stand of 110 with Craig White (48) rectified things and built a winning total.
One day, when he is a cynical old pro, he will look back and wonder why he smeared the last ball of the innings to backward point. But a single had given him his hundred in the same over, scored from 125 balls with only four fours and two sixes, and a World Cup place beckons now.
Caddick bowled aggressively and well as he had done earlier against Western Australia. But he was abetted by some miserable strokeplay
From 46 for four there was little way back if England kept their discipline. Mahele Jayawardene flourished for a while, as did Samaraweera, while Russel Arnold, who had shown little inclination to try to win the last match in Brisbane, did so again, top-scoring with 44 but taking 82 balls to do so.
- Guardian Service
