England lacked ruthlessness admits captain Collingwood
Paul Collingwood felt his side should have chased down 183
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Saturday, 21, Jun 2008 08:41
England captain Paul Collingwood admitted that his team's failure to be "ruthless" led to the 22 run defeat against New Zealand at Bristol today.
A good bowling performance from England's bowlers saw them reduce New Zealand to 75/6, but sloppy fielding and poor bowling from that point allowed the Kiwis to reach a decent total of 182.
The England top-order batsmen had a day to forget as Luke Wright, Kevin Pietersen, Owais Shah and Tim Ambrose scored a combined total of six runs, as England were all out for 160.
"It was very disappointing; we were in a position to be pretty ruthless and go 2-0 up but things didn't go our way," said Collingwood, who topscored with 34.
"In terms of decision-making we weren't quite there with our batting. The batsmen seemed to edge a few or hit them straight to fielders.
"The effort was certainly there all day and I'm not going to blame the bowlers who were fantastic, but as a batting unit we should have got 180-odd. But we've played some good cricket so far in the series and will hopefully win the next one."
Unsurprisingly New Zealand captain Daniel Vettori was delighted with his team for defending a small total like 182. He described the performance of 19-year-old Tim Southee, who took 4/38 as "outstanding".