Paul Collingwood was encouraged even though his first game as England captain ended in defeat by the West Indies, claiming his side would learn from the experience.
England lost the first Twenty20 international at the Brit Oval by 15 runs, and, aside from a belligerent 80 off 41 balls from Collingwood, offered little resistance after conceding a total of 208-8.
"It was a great experience," the Durham all-rounder said. "They might not think so now, but all the players will think the same. I'm sure we've learnt a lot tonight."
PHOTO: AFP
He was dismissive of criticism that England, as they had been in the World Cup, were not aggressive enough, claiming there was no need to pick a specialist Twenty20 squad.
"We shouldn't get carried away," Collingwood said.
"It's just one game. The 14 guys in that dressing room are the best one-day cricketers in the country at the present time and I'm sure we can adapt our game," he said.
The next highest score after Collingwood's was Matt Prior's 25, but given only three sides in the history of Twenty20 -- at any level -- had ever chased down 208, the problem on Thursday was more the bowling than the batting.
Given how successful spin has been in domestic Twenty20 -- Surrey's Nayan Doshi is the leading all-time wicket-taker -- it was a major surprise that Monty Panesar was left out of the side, with Michael Yardy offering the only spin option.
"It's difficult," Collingwood said. "I thought Yards did a good job, trying to take the pace off the ball. But you have to give West Indies a lot of credit. With [Shivnarine] Chanderpaul flipping the ball over fine leg it's very hard to set fields."
"On the Oval pitch it's very difficult. Even if you get it in the blockhole, it bounces up so the margins for error are very small," he said.
Collingwood accepted responsibility for the gaffe in the fifteenth over of the West Indies innings that conceded a no-ball because England had too few fielders in the circle.
"I hold my hands up," he said. "It was obviously my fault, and these are the things I have to learn from."
The West Indies captain Chris Gayle was delighted that, after a chaotic build-up, his side at last produced a performance worthy of the name.
Having lost the Test series 3-0, West Indies were beaten in a warm-up game by Derbyshire, having been forced to call on university players in a previous warm-up against the England Lions.
"Coming into this game with all the negatives, this was a tremendous effort," Gayle said. "I'm very happy with that."
"The guys are aware of the situation. They will pull together and come out as a unit. Once we get it right we're unbeatable," he said.
Emblematic of the West Indies attitude was Dwayne Bravo, who insisted on bowling the last over despite having an ankle injury that, it had seemed, would prevent him bowling.
"I was going to bowl the second to last over," Gayle said, "but Brav came up and said that he wanted to bowl."
Ravi Rampaul ended up taking the penultimate over, with Bravo the last.
"The physio came up to me and asked what's happening?" Gayle said.
"Brav's a committed player and a die-hard cricketer. He always wants to participate," he said.
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