Colly has a wobble

Paul Collingwood must be looking back through rose tinted spectacles at the days when all he had to worry about was woeful batting form and a crisis of confidence.

His early season woes with the willow must now seem small fry compared to the troubles now sitting on his shoulders.

Forced to sit out the next three one-day internationals and a Twenty20 for overseeing a slow over rate in the field in the latest clash with New Zealand at The Oval, the Geordie has also become the villain of the cricketing world for his part in the controversial run out of Grant Elliott.

Collingwood refused to allow the Kiwi all rounder to be reinstated after he was caught out of his ground following an accidental clash with Ryan Sidebottom.

The act has been described as going ‘against the spirit of cricket’, but it was not just that, it went against the spirit of sport in general.

One player should not suffer, and his team’s chances of winning be hit, by a simple accidental collision.

In football players are encouraged to put the ball out of play if a player is injured, in boxing you have to let you opponent get up if they slip and in most sports a side pauses if a member of the opposition is down with an injury.

Admittedly Collingwood apologised pretty swiftly after the game, but the damage had already been done.

He had his chance and he made the wrong call, what is more he knows it.

If Collingwood is honest he simply panicked, the game was going down to the wire and he saw a chance of getting rid of Elliott, who was looking like the matchwinner and had been a key component in the Black Caps victory in the previous game at Bristol.

It’s all very well to say you’re sorry now but captaincy in cricket is all about making the right decision in the heat of the movement and the combative Durham all rounder let the pressure of the situation affect his judgement.

It almost seems a saving grace for Collingwood that England still managed, with some effort, to contrive to lose the game.

The vitriol heading the England skipper’s way may just have been a little bit spicier if England had walked away with a victory.

If the home side had won it would have gone down in the record books as a win but it would only serve to raise the question of how we actually define a ‘win’, is there really such a thing as winning at all costs?

If you have to bring your sporting integrity into question and the manner in which you play the game, can this side really be classified as winners? Or is all that matters the ‘W’ in the results column?

Think of the times when Michael Schumacher was second to his supporting Ferrari team mates such as Rubens Barrichello and they eased off in the closing stages to allow the German to take over, ensuring him maximum points for his title challenge. Who actually ‘won’ that race?

In 1986 Argentina won the World Cup but how many people think back to that tournament and picture Maradona holding the trophy aloft in a Bobby Moore-esque pose?

How many of us, particularly the English, instead picture the Argentinean rising with his fist aloft as he cheekily dinks the ball over Peter Shilton with the immortalised ‘Hand of God’ to help knock Bobby Robson’s men out in the quarter finals.

I guess the key element in this Collingwood issue is that, thanks to the most basic of cricketing errors – failing to back up in the field, the question of how we define a winner is irrelevant because, in both senses, poor old Colly came out of the game a loser.