England threw away a winning position and are all but out of the ICC World Twenty20 after defeat by New Zealand at Kingsmead in Durban today.

Chasing an eminently reachable total of 165, they were beaten by five runs, falling short despite the excellent Darren Maddy and Vikram Solanki giving them the perfect start, putting on 62 for the first wicket.

Several England batsmen threw their wickets away, but the chief culprit, again, was Kevin Pietersen, who after having just smashed 14 off three balls in the previous over, promptly had one of those inexplicable rushes of blood that only the Hampshire man can.

Pietersen tried a mindless reverse sweep at a quicker ball from Daniel Vettori and was bowled around his legs for 24. In the same over, his hard-hitting soul-mate Andrew Flintoff, was called through for a single by Owais Shah, who then inexplicably changed his mind and sent his partner back. Flintoff was left mid-pitch without a prayer and run out for one.

“We’ve seen before that he’s played that shot and it’s come off,” Paul Collingwood, the England captain, said of Pietersen. “He’s obviously trying to hit with the wind and I’m sure he was trying to hit it for six.

“It was a really crucial period losing Freddie to the run-out and myself, three big players with experienced heads who could have perhaps taken us over the line.”

Owais Shah and Luke Wright once more raised hopes of a victory that should always have been in England's grasp, as they shared a 42-run stand for the sixth wicket to take their side to within 19 runs of victory.

But the Middlesex man was run out by six inches trying - as circumstances dictated - to steal a second run off Vettori in the frantic run chase as the end. When Dimitri Mascarenhas - who had hit five consecutive sixes against India at the Brit Oval, was dismissed first ball, caught at deep cover, hopes rapidly started to fade. Wright, who had made 24, was out in identical fashion and the remaining job was simply too steep for a tail of Schofield and Anderson.

“We just seem to be teasing ourselves all the time,” Collingwood said. “We’re getting so close to knock the runs off and then we lose an important wicket and that partnership we need at a vital time we’ve just not been able to get.

“Whether that’s experience or not I don’t know, but it’s a game that puts you under immense pressure, you have to go in and score from ball one and we just weren’t up to it.”

Collingwood added: “I think 164 was gettable. The boys bowled well and although there were areas where we let New Zealand get away we did okay to restrict them.

“We are disappointed we were 10 per cent off the mark. We were close to chasing them down but we were one innings away from winning.

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