New Zealand's Shane Bond had England shaken and stirred but Paul Collingwood defied the paceman and his own recent form to ensure a challenging tri-series run-chase at the Gabba.

Collingwood, with only 83 runs in six innings before today, turned his batting woes around to rescue England with 106 from 121 balls and lift them to 7-270 in the pivotal match.

The all-rounder's effort has England well placed to win through to meet Australia in the best-of-three tri-series finals series, starting Friday in Melbourne.

A fiery new-ball opening by Bond (4-46) had England teetering at 3-52 when Collingwood, who has struggled to score since making 200 in the third Ashes Test in Adelaide, went to the crease in the 14th over.

But a century stand with similarly out-of-sorts Andrew Strauss (55 off 63) meant the Black Caps would have to score at almost five-and-a-half runs an over to progress to the finals.

The pair rode their luck early with Strauss allowed off the hook by umpire Daryl Harper on 30 when James Franklin hit him plumb in front and Collingwood missed on 18 by Jacob Oram who got his right hand to a return catch.

It wasn't the only fumble by the Black Caps as Ross Taylor made an embarrassing hash of a skied Andrew Flintoff slog in the outfield but the all-rounder made only eight more before becoming Bond's third victim.

Speedster Bond's brilliant new-ball spell started inauspiciously with an off-side wide but his next ball sheared through Michael Vaughan's defence to clean bowl him for a duck.

It continued the skipper's miserable tour of Australia, which included two failures before injuring his hamstring three weeks ago.

His comeback started well by winning an important toss but he had no answer to Bond's superb inswinger.

Bond had the English top-order jumping and finished his first spell with the outstanding figures of 2-9 off five overs after having Ian Bell caught at second slip.

The former Christchurch policeman finally bowled Collingwood in bizarre fashion in the 48th over when non-striker James Dalrymple appeared to distract the all-rounder by dropping his bat on the pitch as Bond delivered.

Bond should have bagged five wickets but Peter Fulton dropped Liam Plunkett in a final over which cost 16 runs.

World-class spinner Daniel Vettori (0-37 off six overs) was uncharacteristically expensive after being pasted by the England middle-order.

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