Collingwood sorry for run-out row

Elliott is sent crashing to the turf after colliding with Sidebottom in full flight

England captain Paul Collingwood has apologised to New Zealand after the controversial run-out which might have denied them victory at The Oval.

Grant Elliott was given run-out after he was knocked to the ground colliding with England seamer Ryan Sidebottom.

"The umpires said 'are you upholding the appeal?'. In hindsight maybe I made the wrong decision," Collingwood said.

"I had to make a split-second decision and probably made the wrong one so my apologies go out to New Zealand."

Collingwood apologises over run-out call

Collingwood went into the New Zealand dressing room after the match to put his point of view across to the tourists.

"We've always had a good relationship with New Zealand and we don't want it affected by this," he said.

Counterpart Daniel Vettori accepted Collingwood's apology and said: "We can move on from it and hopefully the remaining game will be played in the right spirit.

"There has been a real push for the spirit of the game and if you always go by that, hopefully it prevails.

"The guys were incensed at the time, but Paul came and spoke to us, apologised and acted contrite, so we will move on from this situation and hopefully it doesn't happen again.

606: DEBATE Apologising afterwards is easy when there is nothing except your rather tattered reputation at stake Pirinoa1

"It took us a while to calm down, but clear minds prevailed in the end. It is not the way we want to act as a New Zealand team but hopefully we've got there in the end.

"Now we know these things can't happen again in the future."

BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew said Collingwood made the wrong call in the heat of the moment.

"From the comfort of an air conditioned commentary box or sitting in the crowd, and certainly with access to slow motion replays, that incident looked terrible," he told BBC Radio 5 Live.

"But it was not premeditated and there was no sort of cheating - I think that's an important aspect of it.

"However, the fact is, as soon as Collingwood realised what had happened, and as he did in hindsight, then that fellow should never have been given out.

Paul came into the changing room and it was generally agreed that was pretty big of him and we accept it Man of the match Scott Styris

"He should have withdrawn the appeal and that should have been it."

Kiwi stalwart Scott Styris, who survived several chances to make a crucial 69, praised Collingwood for the way he handled himself after the match.

"Paul came into the changing room and it was generally agreed that was pretty big of him and we accept it," said Styris, who was man of the match.

Asked whether such a close match had proved the 50-over format still has a place in the schedules, Styris said: "I think the view of the players is that there is plenty of mileage left in all three areas of the game."

Regarding his team's gripping run chase, Styris added: "They were going all out for wickets which I guess is what you have to do defending 245 so it was a case of sucking it up and riding it out towards the end."