'Hard work of the last year paying off'

England beat New Zealand in St Lucia to head into the last four having won all three Super Eight games.

The English have not excelled in the shorter forms of the game in recent years but they have looked the part in the Caribbean and Collingwood said credit went to Test and ODI skipper Andrew Strauss and coach Andy Flower.

“We have put a lot of hard work in during the last year with Andy Flower taking over and (working with) Straussy getting into a different direction in terms of some of our training techniques and trying to work on more power in the field and obviously with the batting," Collingwood told a news connference.

“Some of the things that we have been doing behind the scenes are starting to work out in the middle, which is good to see. The boys are absolutely delighted and their confidence is really high,” he said.

The victory came after Pakistan beat South Africa to ensure England's progress and Collingwood was impressed that despite little being at stake, his team stuck at their task.

“I am delighted with the boys, it could have been easy to sit back and relax given that we had got through to the semis.

“We kept drilling into them that momentum in this form of the game is absolutely crucial and getting into winning habit is vital and they've gone out and beaten a very good side,” he said.

The victory came without key batsman Kevin Pietersen, who skipped the match to be at home with his wife and new born child. Collingwood was pleased to see runs coming from other parts of the batting line-up such as Tim Bresnan, who made 23 not out.

“It is going to take a team effort if we are going to go all the way, it is going to take all of us to put our hands up at certain points along the way and the boys are doing that, we have got a real strong line-up,” he said.