PAUL COLLINGWOOD was expecting England to produce another comeback Test series victory in the Caribbean despite their currently bruised confidence.
The surprise, but thoroughly comprehensive defeat in Jamaica last weekend, left England needing to tread a familiar path to claim the Wisden Trophy as they prepared to start the second Test in Antigua later today.
Eleven months ago they had to overturn a first Test defeat in New Zealand, having put in a similarly poor performance.
In fact, England have become such bad starters that it is 14 series since they won the opening match.
“When you win in those situations it makes it all worthwhile,” said Collingwood, referring to the New Zealand tour.
“You’ve got to go through these real lows to get to your real highs and it is amazing how these sorts of situations can bring the best out of teams.
“Hopefully this is a wake-up call for us to start winning again.
“Everyone is desperate to do this, we are very confident we can bounce back.
“We realise we have the players in the dressing room to do it, so it will be up to those individuals to do it.
“We can’t just paint over the cracks and say it is hunky dory. We have to do it.”
Worryingly for Andrew Strauss, the team he has inherited has a tendency to relinquish advantages, fail to seize winning opportunities and, of course, implode as they did to 51 all out at Sabina Park.
South Africa escaped comfortably from an ominous position at Lord’s and then chased down a challenging score to take the Test series at Edgbaston last summer while even the excellent performance in Chennai in December was tarnished by failing to defend a score of 387.
“Our performances over the past year haven’t been as good as we would have liked,” conceded Collingwood.
“There have been signs over the last 12 months that when we’ve been hit by these pressure situations, we have not been good enough.
“We need to address that in the middle, and the next time we do that will build confidence up.”
