First Rachael Vettori IMO did NOT deserve to be man of the match for a very good reason - New Zealand lost.

I am no supporter of Bell, but his contribution led to the England win - so it follows that he should have been man of the match.

Collingwood to be fair was cool under pressure - even if his shots were unorthodox, and in comparing the two captains in THIS FORMAT of cricket - Collingwood would get the nod over Vettori because England won.

You forget Rachael that in PJ cricket - any scoring shot is a GOOD shot, so why criticize Collingwood, the name of the game in 50 over cricket is to get as many runs as soon as possible.

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Ern

No, not really, but England are starting a long way behind everyone else as they've not been taking the shorter form of the game very seriously up until now and therefore they've got a lot more work to do than everyone else.

Yes, I'm tired of England being a laughing stock in the ODI world which up until very recently they have been.

I won't be satisfied with the England sides until they're No1 in the world at T20, ODI and Tests, and they've got a long way to go before that happens - but they do have the players to do it, even if they don't have the coach.

Whilst Vettori is undoubtedly one of the if not the best SLA's currently in World Cricket, it doesn't help when decisions go against you, which they did when Vettori was bowling.

Firstly, Bell should not have been given out LBW due do an inside edge and Oram should have been and wasn't! The other decision - Pietersens was equally as curious and despite his huge step down the wicket was still given out LBW. Quite how Umpire Rauf calculated that ball would go on to hit the wicket despite having about 10 feet still to travel I'm sure will remain a mystery. Nontheless his decision was vindicated by Hawkeye, so I guess one has to say it was a good decision, but owed as much to guesswork as it did anything else. Another day by a different Umpire and you'd get a different result.

What's clear, is that large strides and being a fair way down the wicket when the ball hits you on the pad is no longer safe as Umpires are starting to give those decisions to bowlers.

So yes, England stuttered at the loss of that partnership, but it doesn't help when you recieve bad decisions. I'm not complaining about those decisions - they happen - but that partnership would not have been broken had it not been from an incorrect decision.

I certainly agree about New Zealands bowling, take out Vettori's contribution (including his one fortuitous wicket of Bell and to a lesser extent Pietersens) and look what the rest did -

Mills 10 overs 54-0 - 5.4 runs per over
Martin 7 overs 45-0 - 6.42 runs per over
Oram 9 overs 45-1 - 5 runs per over
Hitchcock 7 overs 56-0 - 8 runs per over
Styris 1 over 0-6 - 6 runs per over

Not one single bowler bowling at an economy of less than 5 runs per over, that's a minimum score of 250 on any 50 over wicket, and effectively 1-206

I'm sure you'd agree that that simply isn't good enough from a 'supposed' International bowling attack.

Don't agree at all.

ODI isn't like Test Cricket Rachael, you don't get points for perfectly executed shots - you get a winner and a loser and that's all that matters.

Collingwood played a Captains innings (in the same way that Vettori did with Oram) and lead from the front. He showed and demonstrated to HIS players the way HE Wants them to play. He stabilised the mini-collapse or the fall of a couple of quick wickets (which can easily turn into a collpase with this England batting line up) consolidated for an over or two and then started accelerating the innings with Shah who simply supported.

Collingwood batted in exactly the same way he always bats - he improvises and puts the runs on the board, I don't see what else he's supposed to do to be honest. Collingwoods job was to get them past that total with the minimum of fuss and anxiety and that's precisely what he did and he STILL gets criticised - for being agricultural - my god I don't beleive what I'm reading here I honestly don't!

What are you supposed to do with a waist high full toss Rachael? Defend it or smack it for 6 like it deserves?

Please tell me you actually saw Collingwoods innnings Rachael, rather than following it on Cricinfo or listening on TMS.

Rachael, you're just going to have to accept that not everyone is going to bat like David Gower all the time. You say that his premeditated shots reveal a "lack of confidence in his own abilities," but he must have been confident enough to get away with those shots in the first place. "Movement at the crease before the bowler had committed himself?" Everybody does it. It's now accepted in the limited-overs form. As for the agricultural hoicks, the only ones I saw were the full tosses that went for six. Full tosses should go for six. Would you really have preferred it if he had patted them down to fine leg for a single?

I remember this episode of Law and Order, when Jack McCoy offered a deal to a 79-year old defendant- he could accept 15 years for Manslaughter 1, or do 25 if found guilty of Murder 2. His response? "Do you really think it's going to make a difference to me?"

Why do I bring this up? Because McCoy let the purely technical aspects get in the way of the practicalities of the situation- which is exactly what you're doing. Classical strokeplay wasn't going to cut it in that situation. Collingwood's innings was one of determination, character and cold-blooded nervelessness- and not a little of good shots down the ground, and sound judgement of which balls to go for.

I just wanted to expand a little on something I said earlier on about fielders putting down the wickets on a regular basis. It isn't just about getting run outs, although that is obviously a very beneficial by-product of regulary hitting the wicket, but there are other more 'hidden' benefits that Australia take full advantage of - because they have players who can do it regularly.

Ponting, Hussey, Clarke and Symonds can all put down that wicket on a regular basis. It's not the fact that they can hit that wicket regularly that has benefits (such as effecting a run out) but the implied threat of being able to do it consistently and regularly.

Lets say hypothetically that those 4 Australian players can on average hit the stumps 5 times out of 10 - that's a 50% chance of any of them hitting the stumps with a direct hit - what world batsman is going to take those odds on a risky single? Not many I would think and that has a massive bonus within itself - it starts to stop those quick cheeky singles that batsmen take, not only to put 1 run on the board but equally importantly - to rotate the strike.

Strike rotation is so important, particularly when you have a left and right handed combination but even more so - to stop bowlers bowling more than one ball at a time at any one batsman - because that's what bowlers want. What they don't want is to be constantly having to shift the field and their line and their length to bowl 1 ball at a different batsman.

This is exactly what happened in the first half of the NZ innings - Sidebottom, Broad and Anderson were allowed to bowl at one batsman, quite often for a full over because the batsmen were struggling to get the ball away for a single. The result is pressure, lack of runs, lack of strike rotation and one bowler being able to focus on one batsmen at a time and the subsequent regular loss of wickets.

Taking regular wickets in an ODI is by far the best way to slow the run rate down.

The exact opposite happened when Vettori and Oram came together in the latter half of the game when Englands second change/part timers were on who wern't good enough to tie either of those two experienced batsmen down at one end and the result is plenty of runs and Englands bowlers being knocked out of their stride.

This is why I'd like to see England develop at least 3 or 4 players who can do this, the benefits to their overall game would be enormous for the reasons I've outlined.

That's fair enough... but it doesn't excuse this:That shot was disgraceful. Collingwood deserved to be out. The fact that he got runs off it doesn't change anything: he did his level best to gift a top order wicket at a point in the game where the hard work had been done and when retaining wickets in hand would allow the side to coast to a win.

I don't mind batsmen improvising: I've a lot of regard for improvisation. I certainly don't object to batsmen using their feet to get down the wicket. Up to a point I'm also happy enough with batsmen either moving across to an off stump line or backing way slightly: both acceptable enough so long as the batsman isn't pre-meditating a shot based on second-guessing the bowler.

Bottom line: when a batsman plays the ball he should be sufficiently in control of the shot to know exactly where he's placing it... and if he's not, he's stepped over the line seperating adventurousness and recklessness. The above shot in particular left that line WELL behind!

ps. I'm another who rates fielding as critical to ODI cricket... but I don't buy into this argument that England's ODI standards (on the whole) are poor: I'm not sure the following side has ever taken to the field... but it does highlight the strength in depth:

Strauss
Mustard
Bell
Pietersen
Shah
Collingwood
Bopara
Dalrymple
Flintoff
Harmison
Anderson

Mustard setting the tone, Shah, Flintoff and Strauss in the slips, Dalryple, Collingwood, Bopara and Bell in the ring, with Harmison a very respectabe gully if need be and Anderson excelling on the boundaries - Pietersen would be the weakest link, and he's not poor!

Give the current side a few months and I'm sure the fielding will be up to scratch: it's more the positioning (captaincy) that worries me.

Okay, that's fair enough, that was a bad shot. However, looking through the commentary, I see that other than that shot, he had a lofted straight drive, two clips over midwicket, a coverdrive from the leg, a lofted off-drive, a reverse-sweep off a full-toss, and two pull shots of full tosses that deserved everything they got. Doesn't sound like one of his worst ever innings to me.

On another note, I'm not particularly impressed by Shah, who to me looks a bit... crabbish. Are there any other contenders for the number six slot? I know he's an opener, but when I saw Ed Joyce in Australia he looked very solid, and would probably be England's next cab off the rank, so I'd consider him If I were the selector. Shah and Bopara just haven't done enough IMO.

Shah's reputation (until recently) was as a natural gifted, very "wristy" middle order batsman with great hands, an ability to use his feet and an ability to play spin that was up there with the best that England has produced in a generation.

What he's reputedly added in the last two years is discipline... both in preparation (fitness, training and general approach to the game) and innings construction (shot selection). The results have impressed most impartial observers and the decision to omit him in Sri Lanka was almost universally derrided.

I'd agree that Joyce is also a class act... but Graham Gooch keeps talking up Bopara as a future test batsman (and most would probably agree that he's got more batting credability than, for instance, Collingwood had at a corresponding age).

My own preference (in terms of out and out specialists) would be for Shah/Joyce followed by one of Hildreth, Horton and Carberry - five players who could easily constitute a good Test level batting line up (though I'd not dispute that Cook, Vaughan, Bell and Pietersen is the strongest top order England could currently offer).