Strauss hails Vettori sportsmanship

Moral decisions have been made by captains in each of England's three Group B games and the latest, in Tuesday night's four-wicket defeat to fellow semi-finalists New Zealand, resulted in Paul Collingwood being given the benefit of the doubt after misguidedly leaving his crease.

The England captain said: "It was another grey area. Colly obviously wasn't going for a run, he was probably a bit hasty in leaving his crease and New Zealand were in their rights to uphold their appeal. So I have to applaud Daniel Vettori. It was the right decision but a tough decision to make when your future in the tournament is on the line. Fair play to him."

Strauss, who called back Sri Lanka's Angelo Mathews on the same ground in the opening match of Group B last Friday, added: "Colly did say to me that if he had been given out for it he would only have had himself to blame for being dozy."

Vettori later admitted his pardon was influenced by being a Delhi Daredevils colleague of Collingwood.

"It was one of those situations where I had a little bit of time to think about it," Vettori added. "Under the laws of the game it was probably out but we have discussed the spirit of the game a lot lately and that was the basis for the decision."

Collingwood, on 14 at the time, eventually fell for 40 to Grant Elliott, who claimed four wickets in a man-of-the-match display.

Ironically, Elliott was the victim of then England captain Collingwood's decision not to over-rule a run-out at the Oval 15 months ago, which caused great controversy as well as regret at the time.

"It's pretty clear-cut when something like that happens, you know what is right and what is wrong," said Elliott. "We definitely made the right decision and I think whether it was World Cup final, whatever, we would make the same decision.

"I just believe in karma. When we decided to keep him there I knew it was a matter of time and I told him so next over."