Collingwood

Paul Collingwood will return to the ranks with a smile after nearly two full months in charge of the England one-day side. Michael Vaughan, his friend and colleague, is preparing to take over for the Test tour to Sri Lanka, but the first weeks may place the system of twin leaders under high scrutiny.

Despite a 107-run loss on Saturday, the overall 3-2 win in the Bradford & Bingley series represented another personal triumph for Collingwood after the 4-3 victory against India at the end of the English season. He must have overtaken Andrew Strauss in the line of succession for the five-day operation.

Four years ago, Nasser Hussain was unable to reimpose authority at the helm of the Test squad once Vaughan established a different style in the one-day field, but the gap of six weeks before the first Test and the greater similarity between the two methods should make for a smoother transition.

“I am not trying to take Michael’s job and he knows that,” Collingwood said. “I have been happy with the joint captaincy from the start and it has worked really well. It will be nice to have a break from it to concentrate on my own game. Who would take over if he was injured, I do not know.”

England will name the Test party on Friday and, although the challenge will be harder once Muttiah Muralidharan is back from injury for Sri Lanka, the selectors may feel that marginal choices such as Stuart Broad and Owais Shah, along with Graeme Swann, have shown enough in one format to be retained for the other.

Andrew Flintoff will not be around. He has undergone a fourth operation in less than three years on his left ankle, an admission that surgery in July failed to remove all the bone fragments from the troublesome area. He seems certain to be out until the home series against New Zealand in May.

“We all hope that this is his last operation and he returns fully fit,” Collingwood said. “I cannot imagine what it must have been like to come back from an operation and still have that niggle, wondering what has happened. He has done so much for English cricket and remains that big player for us.”

Ottis Gibson was rewarded on Sunday for the swift learning of the seam bowlers by being appointed full-time England bowling coach. He has left the playing side on a high with 80 wickets for Durham in 2007 and has told the West Indies that he no longer wishes to be interviewed for the position of their coach.

“I do not think I have known a better one-day bowling unit in my England days,” Collingwood said, thereby placing it ahead of the core quartet of Flintoff, Darren Gough, Stephen Harmison and Ashley Giles of 2004-05.

The acquisition of Gibson means that Hugh Morris, the managing director of England cricket, has only four vacancies to fill: the Schofield report-recommended posts of head selector and director of county cricket, plus a full-time fielding coach and successor to Moores to head the National Performance Centre.

Collingwood is ready for the break before reporting to Loughborough on November 5 to prepare for the return here. In the past 12 months he has played in all bar one of England’s 37 ODIs, eight Twenty20s and 12 Test matches. Games have spanned six countries and five continents.

On a strong weekend of national sport, he joked that the schedulers had erred in timing the European Championship football match against Estonia on Saturday so that the cricketers would be unable to watch. Batsmen tried to compensate, though, with an abject show completed in time to see the last few minutes from Wembley.