England cruise to Twenty20 victory

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand -- Captain Paul Collingwood led from the front as England beat New Zealand by 50 runs in the second Twenty20 International in Christchurch.

Collingwood hit the only half-century of the match to help England recover from a mini-collapse to reach a formidable 193 for eight before an inexperienced New Zealand team were restricted to 143 for eight.

Collingwood hit a superb 54 off only 28 balls, sharing a 102-run stand with Owais Shah off just 63 balls.

It came after England lost four wickets for 11 runs having been given a flying start by openers Phil Mustard and Luke Wright.

They put on 65 off only 35 balls, which included hitting seamer Paul Hitchcock for 22 in one over.

Sussex all-rounder Wright, whose previous highest score opening for England had been three, matched Mustard stroke for stroke in scoring 30 off 19 balls.

His demise in the sixth over, however, began an England slide when he was bowled by a Chris Martin yorker and was followed in the next over when Kevin Pietersen was trapped lbw after missing a full-toss.

Ian Bell ran himself out in the next over and Mustard, who had raced to 40 off 24 balls, was caught in the deep as England slipped to 76 for four and in danger of failing to post a competitive total.

But Collingwood teamed up with Shah in a productive stand which was only broken with eight balls remaining of the innings when the Middlesex batsman was caught at long off having scored 47 from 35 balls.

England, who won the first match of the series, were again assisted by excellent performances from their front-line bowling attack with Ryan Sidebottom again the pick with two wickets for 19. Dimi Mascarenhas and Graeme Swann also chipped in with two wickets apiece as only Jamie How offered any great resistance, scoring 31 off 25 balls.

New Zealand, badly missing injured captain Daniel Vettori and all-rounder Jacob Oram, will be looking for better fortunes in the five-match one-day series which starts on Saturday in Wellington.

Collingwood is looking forward to the series with renewed confidence.

"I wouldn't say we've demoralized them because I think they'll realise it's a different form of the game, but what we can take is a lot of confidence from our performances," he said. E-mail to a friend