Colly hails Donald impact

1 July 2007

Paul Collingwood praised Allan Donald's role in England's win

Skipper Paul Collingwood hailed the contribution of former South African pace star Allan Donald on England’s young bowlers as they opened the NatWest Series with a 79-run win against West Indies at Lord’s.

Donald is being employed by the ECB as a temporary bowling coach and he has quickly made his mark on Liam Plunkett, Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson.

The trio all bowled with great discipline and worked up a fair degree of pace in sharing seven wickets between them as England bowled out the Windies for 146 in reply to their 225 all out.

Collingwood said: “AD (Donald) has come into the camp and is a very passionate guy and speaks his mind which is fantastic because he has got a hell of a lot of knowledge in that brain of his.

“He has spoken a lot to all of the bowlers and it shows when they are all going out there with aggression and hitting the bat hard and hitting late 80s in terms of miles per hour, which is great.

“To sustain that over long periods of time, not only out in the middle but game by game, is going to be helpful for us to win.

“They took that same intensity that we had shown in the Twenty20 matches into today’s game and I thought it worked really well.

Allan Donald © Getty Images

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“Jimmy and Liam started off really well and then for Broady to come on and keep that same intensity and pressure on the batsmen was great for such a young guy.

“There is not a lot of experience from Plunkett and Broad but today they were magnificent.

“Broady has got great character, a great head on his shoulders, is a lot more mature than his age, but all the bowlers did themselves credit.

“To have 225 on the board is not a massive total but to keep them down to 145-150 is a top effort.”

Collingwood added: “Will Donald continue with England? He has been fantastic. Since he has been here he has given a lot of knowledge and experience to the bowlers.

“It’s not my decision whether he stays or goes but he has given us a lot of help which is great for all the bowlers.”

England never let West Indies get going when the tourists batted © Getty Images

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Collingwood is keen for England to develop a “winning culture” in one-day cricket after their recent poor record.

He said: “When you don’t win as much at one-day cricket, people say you are not putting as much effort in but I assure you there has been a lot of effort put in one-day cricket over the last few years.

“We haven’t been as successful but I think that effort has been there. Hopefully we can move forward as a team and get those wins under our belt. That creates confidence and belief and that’s what you need when playing one-day cricket.

“Hopefully we can create that winning culture. When you have got fresh faces in the side, there is a fresh feel and over the last week and a half there have been excellent efforts put in by everybody.

“It’s not just about going into the nets and trying hard. It’s been the talk off the field as well and getting strategies in place, putting plans together and going out there and using them.”

Chris Gayle suggested Shiv Chanderpaul could move up West Indies' batting order

West Indies skipper Chris Gayle is considering using star batsman Shivnarine Chanderpaul higher up the order in the forthcoming games at Edgbaston on Wednesday and Trent Bridge on Saturday.

Chanderpaul batted at five and scored a half-century which proved in vain.

Gayle said: “We fancied our chances of getting that target. We bowled well to restrict them to 225 and I had all the confidence we would get the target but unfortunately it didn’t happen.

“We have to go back to the drawing board and put things in place. England bowled well but having said that most of our batters didn’t get started. These things happen.

“The only batter who got a start was Shiv (Chanderpaul) and he carried on. It is something we will have to look into, maybe putting him higher up the order.

“I will talk to the coach about it and we will see what happens. Maybe we can utilise him for more overs.

“We put him at number five because we need a left-hander in the middle for combating Monty Panesar. That’s the reason why.”