Paul Collingwood upbeat despite defeat

Captain Paul Collingwood was philosophical about the end of England's record winning run in Twenty20 cricket today. Two days after beating Australia by one wicket off the last ball of the match to make it eight victories in a row, England were on the wrong end of another tight encounter as they lost by four runs in Melbourne.

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Collingwood blamed a below-par batting performance, telling Sky Sports: "I thought we were in a pretty good position after six overs but the next 10 overs we got a lot of dot balls. "We couldn't quite manage to get the boundaries when we were going for big shots. It was difficult to get a hold of the ball with the big boundaries. "We didn't quite get our gameplan right. We were trying to get twos and threes but we kept picking out fielders. "It was definitely a gettable chase. It could have been better today but we've had a great run of things and it doesn't always go according to plan. Full credit goes to Australia." Collingwood again failed to impress with the bat, scoring only six as his poor tour continued, but he remains optimistic ahead of the one-day series. "I've hardly scored a run in Australia so of course there's concern," he continued. "I know I'll get my form back. It just takes one knock and hopefully that'll be the next game." Aaron Finch was the star for Australia in only his second match, smashing an unbeaten 53 off 33 balls to guide the hosts to a decent score of 147 for seven after they had slumped to 80 for five. Captain Cameron white praised Finch's efforts but admitted he did not think Australia's total would prove to be enough. "It's great for him," White said of 24-year-old Finch. "Second game, home crowd, he should be very proud. "It was a good all-round effort. I thought we were! a fract ion short but I knew it was a score we could win with if we could bowl and field a little better than the other night." The result was a timely boost for Australia following their painful Ashes defeat and will give them confidence ahead of the seven 50-over encounters. White added: "The one-day format is very different from 20 overs but it's a bit of momentum and hopefully we can continue in that form."

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