Collingwood savours 'special' day

Paul Collingwood celebrates scoring his sixth Test hundred at Edgbaston

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Paul Collingwood toasted a special innings after his sixth Test hundred gave him a stay of execution and put England back on course to level the npower series against South Africa.

Collingwood resumes tomorrow at Edgbaston unbeaten on 101 and attempting to add to the hosts’ advantage of 214.

The 32-year-old walked to the crease with England effectively 21 for four and in the knowledge this might have been his last Test for a considerable time had he extended his miserable return of just 96 first-class runs this summer.

But he followed captain Michael Vaughan’s last-minute gee-up to the letter, sharing a crowd-pleasing stand of 115 with Kevin Pietersen (94) and later reaching three figures with a straight six off spinner Paul Harris.

“Having scored the number of runs (I have) so far this year in Test cricket, of course I felt a lot of pressure,” Collingwood said. “Not so much from the outside but knowing you have to contribute.

“Feeling as though I have not been contributing and letting the team down is how it has been for me over the last few weeks - so today was very special.

“Things went my way from the start and it is a day I will never forget because it has been tough over the last couple of months.”

Collingwood, recalled after being axed for the Headingley defeat which put England 1-0 behind in the series, added: “Vaughan said something very important to me just before I went out: ‘Don’t be reckless but be aggressive.’

“I quite enjoy having that freedom from the skipper and I wasn’t going to change my way even in the 90s.

“From ball one I wanted to go out there and be aggressive and I wanted to continue in that manner. Risk it for the biscuit.”

His subsequent century celebration was undoubtedly the most muted of his half-dozen to date but those of his colleagues were considerably more animated.

“Everybody realised how difficult it has been over the past few months and they have said a score has just been around the corner, and today proved that,” he said.

“I just wanted to keep the same rhythm and I didn’t want to upset that.

“Sometimes you see people get out straight after a hundred because they think they have made it. I just wanted to keep the same rhythm rather than run around like a loony tune.”

Coach Micky Arthur said South Africa's performance on day three "simply wasn't good enough"

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Collingwood has so far added 76 for the seventh wicket with Tim Ambrose and believes that many again from the final four wickets will pressurise South Africa in the latter stages of the contest.

“If we can get up to 280-300 ahead it’s always a difficult score to knock off,” Collingwood said. “As a team we have to go out and play as hard as possible.”

South Africa have the second new ball available upon the resumption and that is the one glimmer of hope their exasperated coach Mickey Arthur is clinging to.

“Today was very, very disappointing,” he said. “It simply wasn’t good enough and we have got that out of the way in the dressing room.

“We have got a gift tomorrow morning and that’s the second new ball, and we have to make it work. The game is now on a knife edge.”

South Africa were closing in on an unassailable 2-0 lead when Pietersen holed out and Andrew Flintoff popped a catch to short leg in the same over.

But a side who hate their ‘chokers’ tag failed to press home their advantage.

“We asked the guys to forget about outcomes and we actually forgot about everything else we spoke about,” bemoaned Arthur. “Our plans didn’t work.

“As I have always said you can set up the most brilliant plans in the world but you still have to execute them.

“We wanted to have Colly feeling outside off-stump and he got off the mark pulling - that said everything about our performance.

“But he came out and played unbelievably well under the pressure.”