Collingwood to be World Twenty20 captain?
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According to a snippet in this report from The Times, Paul Collingwood will be confirmed as England captain for the World Twenty20 on Friday.
Which is interesting, considering that a month ago he said he didn’t want to do it. Here is a quote from that article:
For whatever reasons, I gave up the job and I would take a lot of persuading to do the job again. Whoever takes it I’m sure will do a very good job. But there’s a lot of things to happen between now and then, a coach to come in and things like that. We will have to wait and see, but I would have to take some persuading to do that job.
I wonder who did the persuading?
Personally, I don’t think he is the best choice as captain, but the selectors probably felt they wanted a contracted player. Pietersen was a no-go, Strauss ruled himself out, which meant that the only other realistic contenders were Rob Key and Dimi Mascarenhas.
Of course they could have decided to be adventurous, but that is not in their blood. Collingwood has so far been an interested spectator at the IPL, having failed to get a game ahead of Delhi Daredevils other overseas players – each team can only field 4 per game.
The lack of exposure for Collingwood, Owais Shah and Graeme Napier, and the poor performance of Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff, does not bode well for England’s chances in the World T20. As with the 50-over format, England are way behind the rest of the world tactically, and this only six years after the ECB introduced it.
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