Flashpoint: Kevin Pietersen's dismissal undermined England's run-chase © Getty Images Enlarge

"He [Pietersen] was looking at the fielder and the ball and Pollock, whether he meant it or not, got in his way," explained Collingwood. "He would have got in very easily and that was a bit of bad luck we had tonight, but even with that we still should have knocked those runs off."

Collingwood then suggested that the third umpire could have given Pietersen not out, even though it isn't within his remit. "Sometimes you think common sense would prevail and maybe the third umpire would give him not out.

"If that's something that has to be put into the rules regarding decisions like that I'm not too sure. I don't want to make it a big issue. It was the third umpire's decision and he has to make that quick decision."

Graeme Smith had no issues with the dismissal: "If I felt Shaun did it on purpose I would have called KP back but he was trying to get back to the stumps. It's a big pitch out there and Kevin ran straight at him in the middle of the wicket."

Collingwood said it was England's shoddy catching which let South Africa off the hook after they had been reduced to 94 for 6. At least six chances went down, the most costly of which came when Albie Morkel was on 14. Collingwood, back peddling from midwicket, couldn't get a hand to a steepling top-edge and it appeared a more comfortable chance for Owais Shah running in from long-on.

"It was very noisy out there and I wasn't sure whether Owais had heard my call because I saw him out of the corner of my eye," said Collingwood. "I don't think our ground fielding was too bad, it was the catches and it was very costly in the end. It is something we have to look at. I can hold my hands up on that one and we could have probably bowled South Africa out for maybe 130.

"If they'd have got a score like that it would have put them out of the game - saying that I think we'd have still taken 154 at the start of the day and we were disappointed we didn't knock them off."