— PHOTO: AFP

WE'VE DONE IT!: England batsmen Paul Collingwood (centre) and Paul Nixon (right) saw England through in the first final of the tri-series.

MELBOURNE: England, without its captain Michael Vaughan, 9-1 outsider at the start and 15 for three as it began to chase 253 for victory, pulled off an astonishing victory in the first final of the tri-series one-day tournament with only three balls remaining.

England was led by a second successive century from Paul Collingwood who made an undefeated 120 and received praise from both his team mates — Andrew Flintoff his captain said his innings was "one of the best I have seen from an Englishman" — and Ricky Ponting, the Australian captain who called his hundred "outstanding."

Flintoff added: "Now we can take something home with us if we put in at least one more good performance. I think we can play better but tonight all the plaudits must go to Paul Collingwood." It was the game that the men who invented international one-day cricket must have dreamed about; full of excitement, pressure leading to mistakes, and, to the surprise of those who feel that the limited overs game is somehow inferior to Tests, a remarkably high standard of cricket.

Batsman-friendly pitch

Ponting won the toss and chose to bat on a fault-free pitch and although Adam Gilchrist was caught in the deep in the sixth over it was always clear that the batsmen would feel at home. That is how it seemed when Matthew Hayden and Ponting rushed to 170 by the 31st over when all the talk was of a score close to 350 and certainly too many for England to overtake. Ponting said afterwards that he had expected "many more than 252" but Collingwood took a superb catch at cover to send him back and Hayden was caught in the deep ten runs later. Unbelievably, the last six Australian wickets fell for 23 runs after another fine spell by Flintoff who finished with three for 41. Even in the field, Collingwood was the main source of English inspiration with the run out of both Michael Clarke and Brett Lee to add to his great catch to get rid of Ponting.

Lee, bowling at his quickest, collected the wickets of Mal Loye and Ed Joyce and Andrew Strauss had another poor decision when he was adjudged lbw to Nathan Bracken but Collingwood and Ian Bell put on 133. Bell's batting was assured despite an extraordinary show by Glenn McGrath, who dropped a catch off him and then put up a petty display of bad temper that included a verbal attack on Bell who went on to make 65. Flintoff helped Collingwood add 74 off 75 balls for the fifth wicket and in the dramatic last overs Paul Nixon "simply helped Colly finish the job" — as he put it with 11 off ten balls.

Ken Schofield, the chairman and Hugh Morris, one of the members, of the committee set up to see what is wrong with England after its 5-0 Ashes whitewash, were both busily making inquiries during the first half of the game. By the time England was batting, they contented themselves with watching the cricket. Secretly, they must have been wondering if anything was wrong with a side that can produce a victory of this quality powered by all-rounders as strong as Flintoff and Collingwood and fielding that often equalled the Australian out-cricket.

After so many poor displays, so many mistakes and so many disappointments in England's tour of Australia, the side appears to be finishing strongly and reminding us of the courage it showed when it won back the Ashes only 18 months ago.

That memory is so much part of English sporting heritage that the team's failure to reproduce it in Australia has been the main cause of its supporters' grumbles. Now, at last, that has been put right, whatever happens in Sunday's second final or next Tuesday's third game.

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