What is wrong with Paul Collingwood?
 

What is wrong with Paul Collingwood? because something is, i cant put my finger on it but for me he will never be a world class batsman. He has got a lot of runs this year, recently got a double century and has a very respectable average in the 40s. But there is something wrong with Paul Collingwood. Whenever i hear the name or see him bat i just cant help thinking to myself this man is not a test player.

Disagree, collingwood may have come into englands test team because of tresco going home, but he showed he can bat at test level. 200 is a very respectable score. only the greats (like one J. Gillespie) make that milestone. for mine collingwood will be a mainstay in the england squad at number 5 to help out kp when 1,2 and 3 fall over.

Well the obvious thing is his small backlift. This make him look different and a little awkward and forces him to work the ball around rather than confidently strike it.

He is never going to be capable of hitting the ball like KP, Hayden, Symonds etc because of this backlift.

In his defense, Ive bowled at a number of Test players and he impressed/suprised me the most. His reflexes and agility are incredible.

He is half man, half cat, zero backlift. :)

I think its a problem, coz hes a borderline ginger.


Oh and hes got no shots either, rather have Owais Shah in the side myself.

He is 100% ginger but he does a Ian Bell and tries to hide it.

Main problem with Collingwood is that he struggles on wickets with pace and bounce and gets in a feeling session with young Chris Read on who will offer the slips more catching practice. Given a slow, low wicket and he will shine but at least his one cricketer who has fight and spirit in this England side.

he can compete with warney's seldges

Not a talented player but you can tell he tries very hard. Also that ginger hair is setting him back big time.

He looks too much like a Scot for mine.

every team needs a ginger though...its the only thing the aussie team is lacking

It's pretty simple - he can only bat when the pitch is dead flat. Put any sort of pace or movement in the wicket and he's just another tail ender. Look at the tons he's scored:

134* n/o vs india - 1273 runs scored in total, match drawn...other centurions - 2 (although there were 4 other scores of 70+)
186 vs pakistan - 1483 runs scored in total, match drawn...other centurions - 4
206 vs aust - 1361 runs scored in total, match lost (should've been a comfortable draw)...other centurions - 3

I realise that the likes of Ponting would've made many a ton on similar pitches...but that's not my point :) My point is that Collingwood is yet to produce an innings that has influenced the outcome of the game. Like Bell, he finds his runs most often when the hard yards have been done by the batsmen preceeding him, when the runs are already flowing. Put him in a pressure cooker situation with a new ball that's still nipping around and he gets out cheaply more often than not (Bell has improved somewhat however, but the number of times he plays and misses you'd have to say that's more due to luck than anything).

Like many of his English counterparts there's no flexibility in his batting. He bats the same no matter the state of the game - block, block, block. His 206 in adelaide was the most painful innings I have ever seen. For whatever reason he never took any chances to increase the tempo and left England in a position where the best outcome would've been a draw. I don't know if there's such a thing as a century that can lose you a match...but that is as close as you'd come.

As for gingers - isn't one Shane Warne a ginger???? We all know he bleaches his hair, but i'm pretty sure his eyebrows are ginger...and last season he had a goatie that looked awfully ginger...plus his children are gingers. I think he claims to be a strawberry blonde, but i reckon that's just his excuse when he gets a bit slack with the bleaching.

I'd say he's definitely guilty of the 'ginger beard' issue.
For the record, strawberry blonde is clearly ginger no doubts about it.

Seconded. For some reason I'm still not convinced by him. I've also noticed that he seems to get a bizarre number of runs from inside edge into the leg side, which confuses me - maybe it's just that his way of working things to leg always looks like he's getting an edge, I dunno. :blink:

Collingwood is a great batter.Why do you think there's something bad about him???

Collingwood has scored all of his hundreds in the first innings. The scores when he came into bat were 3-110, 3-88, 2-45. It's not like he's coming in at 2-200 or something similar, when he would be able to bat without worry. In his last two century innings, he's combined with another batsman to put on a large partnership. In his first century innings, the next highest score was 60.

As for his innings leaving the only outcome possible a draw - maybe thats true. Or maybe, just maybe, it's England's failure to take 20 wickets in those matches.

That's rather OTT.