Collingwood ready to hand over to Strauss
England's victorious Twenty20 captain, Paul Collingwood, believes that his team's triumph in the Caribbean is on a par with last summer's Ashes win
Cricinfo staff
18-May-2010
Job done: Paul Collingwood is happy to let Andrew Strauss reclaim the England captaincy • Getty Images
England's victorious Twenty20 captain, Paul Collingwood, believes that his team's triumph in the Caribbean is on a par with last summer's Ashes win, but insists that there will be no problem whatsoever as he prepares to hand the England captaincy back to Andrew Strauss, who has been taking a break since the end of the tour of South Africa in January.
England's seven-wicket win over Australia in Barbados ended the country's run of 35 years without a major ICC trophy, and was made possible by an exciting new brand of attacking cricket which was entirely at odds with the diffident displays England have shown in previous limited-overs campaigns. But the focus now returns to Test cricket, with the series against Bangladesh looming next week, and with that in mind, Collingwood was very happy to relinquish the leadership.
"Andrew Strauss is obviously our captain in the one-day format and in the Test format," Collingwood told reporters at Gatwick Airport. "This was solely my job as Twenty20 captain, to go out and win the World Cup, which is exactly what we've done. There's no pressure on him coming back in.
"He's a fantastic leader, and a lot of this kind of success we've had over the last few weeks can go down to a lot of the values he and Andy Flower have installed in us over the past year. The team ethic has certainly helped the team gel together and become a strong unit."
With his return to the ranks imminent, Collingwood was able to reflect with satisfaction on his moment of glory. "We went over there to win a World Cup and we achieved that," he told Radio 5 Live. "It's a massive achievement. We've had a monkey on backs having not won an ICC trophy and put that right. It's right up there with last year's Ashes win.
"We had a team with plenty of belief and a team with plenty of skill. The brand of cricket we played was exciting, and we really took it to the opposition. Really it was about consistent performances right the way through and we built on that momentum right the way through to final."