Team showed 'terrific spirit': Collingwood by CricketArchive Staff Reporter

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Player:	PD Collingwood
Event:	ICC World Twenty20 2009

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DateLine: 16th June 2009

 

England T20 skipper Paul Collingwood hailed his side's fighting spirit after they were eliminated from the ICC World Twenty20.

 

Two intermittent showers at the Oval reduced West Indies' target to 80 from nine overs after England posted 161 for six.

 

England claimed five wickets inside half a dozen overs of the chase, however, before experienced duo Shivnarine Chanderpaul and Ramnaresh Sarwan dashed for the line and got over with four balls to spare.

 

"I am very proud of the guys, to be honest," said England captain Collingwood. "The way they've fought all the way through the tournament, which has been a rollercoaster ride for us, has been terrific.

 

"At one point in that game I thought we had a real chance of winning it.

 

"To get yourselves in that sort of position shows that we've got a lot of character in the side because it's not easy defending a total like that off nine overs.

 

"In truth, we were probably not one wicket away from winning. There's so little time and with the amount of overs that you've got, wickets don't make a lot of difference.

 

"And give them a bit of credit because even when we did get the yorkers in they managed to get them for four and we weren't quite good enough on the day."

 

Collingwood though insisted that the weather did not come into his thinking after winning the toss in the must-win Super Eights match.

 

"It didn't play any part," said Collingwood. "Not at all. I looked at the weather forecast and the website I looked at said a 20% chance of rain.

 

"I thought 'That's okay', so it wasn't even in the back of my mind. I was expecting 40 overs of cricket today and obviously we were trying to play to our strength."