Collingwood Savours Change of Fortune

Paul Collingwood is finishing his tour of Australia as he started it: in a blaze of glory and run-scoring. His second successive century guided England to a stunning four-wicket victory over Australia in the CB Series final at the MCG - and put to bed his miserable run of form in the middle of the tour.

After scoring 206 in the Adelaide Test on December 2, Collingwood failed to reach fifty in 14 increasingly laboured innings. But he made 106 against New Zealand on Tuesday and today played the greatest knock of his one-day career: a matchwinning 120 not out that fairly dripped of mental strength and agility. Australia contemptuously referred to Collingwood as "Tough Guy" during the Test series. Here, emphatically, he lived up to the billing.

"I went through a patch when I thought I was batting with a stump in my hand," said Collingwood, who helped England chase down a stiff target of 253 on a slow pitch. "But the century (against New Zealand) gave me a positive attitude and it's a great feeling to bring the boys home.

"It's been a tough tour but we are professional cricketers and we want to finish the tour on a high - and today we've come out and put a great performance in."

Collingwood's contribution was not limited to his batting. He also ran out Brett Lee and Michael Clarke and took a magnificent catch to dismiss Ricky Ponting at a time when Australia looked set for a total in excess of 300.

"It's been one of the days when it's gone my way again," he said, "When we were three wickets down I tried to keep positive and we (Collingwood and Ian Bell) tried to keep going and hit the ball over the top if it was in our areas."

It was once said of Michael Bevan, one-day cricket's master finisher, that he had a "tweezer for a bat and a calculator for a brain". Collingwood's innings, which contained only 34 runs in boundaries, truly was Bevanesque. "I don't get many boundaries - I'm not the hardest hitter in the world," he said. "The big boundaries over here suit my game. I can scamper around between the wickets. I don't want to play outside my bubble - try to play like a Freddie or a Kevin Pietersen. I've got to play like Paul Collingwood."

On Sunday's second final, Collingwood added: "We'll get up for it. It's a massive game now and if we can win that it'll be a great flight home."

You suspect that, for Paul Nixon, it will be a great flight home regardless. In his first series as an England player he has been like a 36-year-old in a sweetshop, and the latest treat came when he was at the crease with Collingwood in the moment of victory.

"Colly has stood up and been counted," Nixon said. "He is full of beans and when I joined him at the crease he said, 'Let's get the job done, lad'. We were two northerners together, east and west.

England's hopes seemed to be going west when Australia raced to 170 for one earlier in the day, but Nixon said a "bollocking" from Andrew Flintoff changed the game.

"In the last 10-15 overs when we were in the field Freddie kicked us back into gear," said Nixon. "We weren't on it and he reminded us this is a final, big-time. It was important to get the collective thought process going again." Collingwood would have thought the same a week ago, when he couldn't buy a run. Now, England's Tough Guy is back.