DUBAI England Twenty20 skipper Paul Collingwood is hoping to carry on his team's winning form against South Africa into the Twenty20 Challenge series against Pakistan at Dubai Sports City Stadium later this week.
“We can take lot of good stuff from one-day series in South Africa and bring into our matches. It is an important week for us here. It is good to have these two matches before the World Cup to see exactly where we are in terms of squad selection. It is also important to get a couple of wins under our belt, which will give us great confidence before the World Cup,” he said here on Monday. Though Pakistan have been reeling from pressure of huge defeats against Australia, Collingwood is not willing to take his opponents lightly.
“Pakistan are very strong side and there is no doubt about it as they have won 20 out of their 28 Twenty20 matches. It is, indeed, a great record and proves they are a hard team to beat. They have got lot of batting depth. In Twenty20 they play fearless cricket and got good skills.
“Now that we have beaten a strong South African side and way we are progressing as a one-day side, though not actually in Twenty20, it may help us and may lead to do better in Twenty20 as well,” he added.
He said his team had plans to work very hard during the week to sharpen their T20 skills. “We have lot of confidence but we are not going to sit back and rely on our confidence. We will do some hard work for games against Pakistan. We also play England Lions on Wednesday, who will have feel of an international game. We will have to be right on our game to beat Lions and Pakistan.”
“Twenty20 is very hard to gauge. One person can change the game. I am excited with our batting, which seems to be getting stronger and stronger with every one-day game. Earlier we never used to hit ball hard, which is actually main attribute of Twenty20. Now we have some batsmen who can now take the game away from opposition,” he concluded.
The two matches at Dubai provide an international warm-up ahead of England's trip to Bangladesh, and they will also be an opportunity for England to get some vital match practice with the World Twenty20 Championships in the West Indies less then two months away.
“It's good to have these two games before the World Twenty20 to see exactly where we are in terms of team selection and squad selection. The important thing this week is to get a few wins under our belt and that would give us great confidence going in to the World Twenty20.
Collingwood, who has played in all but one of England's Twenty20 Internationals since 2005, captaining the side to eight victories in 17 games at the helm, was confident that England are approaching a watershed as a one-day and twenty20 outfit and are a vastly improved side since the last World Twenty20 tournament.
“I'm excited because certainly with our batting line up we seem to be getting stronger and stronger with every one-day game we're playing and the confidence that we're building all the time. There are some important players among us already who can take the game away from the opposition. You need as many match-winners in your side as possible and I think we really are starting to get a lot of them.”—Agencies
