Posted by We’ll do a proper Paul Collingwood retirement post in a few days. For now, the cricket comes first. Which is as it should be.
Anyone feeling sad that he’s fallen into retirement after diminishing returns with the bat would do well to remember the kind of man he is. He spent years as England’s drinks carrier on tour and when he finally got into the team, it became apparent that he didn’t just pay lip service to the team ethic. He would do his job whether it was batting, bowling, fielding, captaincy or ferrying drinks to and from the middle during breaks in play.
Give Paul Collingwood the choice between retiring with a hundred in a drawn series or going out with barely a run in an away Ashes series win and we’re pretty sure we know which he’d go for.
Take a look at these catches as well. Paul Collingwood is one of England’s all-time greatest cricketers in some regards. He is the player every 10-year-old cricket fan wants to be: Superman with glue hands.
“Paul Collingwood is one of England’s all-time greatest cricketers in some regards.”
?
!
?!???!!!!!!?
Calm down a bit. He is definitely one of the best fielders you will see, in an era when great fielding is more normal than it used to be. And he was a usefully moderate test-standard batsman, comfortably up to the job but not exceptional. But a great test cricketer? No, no, no, no, no.
I’m not trying to be dismissive of Pau Collingwood. He is what he is. How much we miss him will depend entirely on how good his replacement is. I assume it will be Morgan, and if he can convert all of his talents into test match cricket I would think we’d hardly miss Collingwood at all.
The ‘some regards’ being catching, ground fielding and athleticism. He is one of England’s all-time greatest fielders, if not the best of the lot.
That’s what we’re saying. We’re not mental.
We, for one, will miss his fielding no matter who replaces him. A Collingwood catch is more exciting and more memorable than virtually any shot any batsman can ever play. Irreplaceable.
Oh I see. Sorry, I thought you were mental.
Well, we are mental, but more in a ‘flicking the non-functioning light switch more times than the functioning one so that it catches up’ kind of way rather than a ‘too keen to laud cricketers for greatness’ kind of way.
Make your sodding mind up. Are you mental or are you not?
One of our personalities is.
I was caught in a traffic jam on the Gloucester Road in Bristol. A DB7 was stuck going the other way. I said to my wife ‘I wonder what c**t is driving that’. It turned out to be Paul Collingwood. I wound down the window and said, ‘hello Paul’. He replied ‘hello’.
I felt very guilty for all the reasons set out in the above article. But it is not quite taking the lord’s name in vain in a way that it would have been if Michael Vaughan driving one of England’s Aston Martin car pool…
This is sad.
What surprised me today was that I compared his record to Jonty Rhodes (who I’ve always considered Collingwood as an England equivalent of because of the fielding) and Collingwood has a noticeably better record, even in terms of catches and ODI batting figures (he murders him in Tests).
Always admired him and the way he played. I’ll definitely miss him. I hope he’ll pass Stewart as the man with the most appearances for England across all forms of cricket. I think he’s about 15 or so behind right now. The ODIs, 20-20s and World Cup should move him ahead.
Perhaps Collingwood retired to protect his >40 batting average. I would have done.
It was up at 43 a while ago. That was nice.
I always thought he ought to bowl more in ODIs, his average was becoming pretty decent lately.
I’m spending big bucks on a classy meal for the lady in my life tonight (even letting her get large fries and coke for 30p extra), for which I expect to be repaid in…erm…intimate time.
During this intimate time, I plan to shovel her through midwicket in an ungainly fashion. It’s the only tribute to the Ginger Prince he would approve of.
Nurdle her for one, Lunatic.
Let’s just hope she’s not got a sticky wicket.
You wouldn’t want to lose middle stump after a quick knock on a sticky dog.
Yesss! It’s just the meaning that “vacant midwicket area” was crying out for.
Let’s hope there’s plenty of fine leg involved but keep an eye out for that third man.
Oh dear. The thread has descended into SMUT.
Just pitch it short and fire it up somewhere near her nose.
Makes sense to me.
The key is occupation of the crease.
Keep putting it in the right areas and build some momentum.
Maybe you should just have sex with her.
It’s “Carry On Cricket”…
I imagine in Colly’s passport it says “Professional Cricketer”
…does what it says on the tin, & his contributions at vital moments are worth a goodly No. of runs. One of the first names in the squad…….