No batting wobbles - Colly

Paul Collingwood falls lbw to Mark Gillespie for 59 at the Basin Reserve © Getty Images

View photo story

Paul Collingwood has urged his fellow England batsmen to relax at the crease during the third and final Test against New Zealand in Napier.

England’s top six are yet to score a century during the series, although wicketkeeper reached three figures in the second Test at Wellington.

But Collingwood remains confident that England’s experienced batting unit can end its sticky patch and fire on all cylinders at McLean Park.

“You can put too much emphasis on it; it can go that way,” admitted Collingwood.

“You can put too much pressure on yourself by saying I’ve got to kick on.

“You play your best cricket when you’re relaxed and enjoying yourself and reacting to the ball. You play your worst cricket when you’re thinking you must do this, I don’t want to do that - and that’s when you start doing things.

“If you think I mustn’t drop the ball short because he’ll smash it, you’ll end up doing it - that’s how life tends to work on a cricket pitch.”

He stressed: “You can put too much pressure on yourself that way. I think because of that the boys haven’t made it a massive issue among themselves - they just want to go out there and play their game.

“We obviously realise we want to make big runs but we’re trying not to make it a massive issue. As long as we win games for England, that’s the important thing.”

Kevin Pietersen is one of the top six who are eyeing a big score soon © Getty Images

Collingwood, who scored half-centuries in each innings during the victory at the Basin Reserve, was the last member of the top six to record a first-innings hundred when he hit 128 against West Indies at Chester-le-Street last June.

Since then Kevin Pietersen (twice), Michael Vaughan and Alastair Cook have scored centuries in the second innings, but not in the first innings when there is a better chance of influencing the match.

“I don’t want to turn around and start making excuses because we need to start scoring hundreds as that is how you win Test matches,” conceded Collingwood.

“I think we’ve come across some good bowling, certainly in the India series when they were swinging it both ways and Sri Lanka is a difficult place to score hundreds.

“I wouldn’t put it down to a lack of desire, concentration or anything like that. I would probably put it down to there being a lot of good bowling against us, but we believe we’re better players than that and we should be going out there and scoring hundreds.

“You have a bit of a laugh about it here and there between the batsmen, but we go out there setting our sights on scoring big runs and winning games for England.

“We don’t go out there thinking we must score a hundred today because we haven’s done that for so many games.

Paul Collingwood reaches 100 against the West Indies in June

"It’s about winning games for England and in certain conditions sometimes a 60 is good enough on that day and that will win you the game.”

Michael Vaughan’s side are aiming to complete a remarkable turnaround, having bounced back to win the second Test in Wellington after losing the opener in Hamilton.

Collingwood believes New Zealand have been underrated by many people, adding: “As players we realised how dangerous New Zealand are, whether everyone else realised that or not.

“We realised it wasn’t going to be a canter coming over here. When a team bats down to number seven and eight like these guys do they’re going to be a really hard team to beat and they’ve also got a lot of skill in their bowling.

“I know people have expected us to come over here and steamroller then but that wasn’t what we thought. We knew we’d have to play well and play hard, tough cricket. We were well beaten in that first Test.

“If we put in the performance that we can do, we should go on and win the game.

"It’s always going to be tough when you’ve got players coming in at number and number eight like they have and they have very skilful bowlers, but I think we have the talent, skill levels and experience, and if we put our best performances in we can go out there and win.”