Paul Collingwood looks to final battle

Paul Collingwood is spending a rare day in his native North East England and has a smile on his face. "I'm loving my cricket," says the man, now equally happy in his twin batting personae of Brigadier Block and Captain Smash. "I can honestly say over the last year I have enjoyed myself more than at any other time. I'm living the dream!"

It has not always been this way. Being Paul Collingwood, chief scrapper and nurdler of the England team, has always been a battle, one that he has fought defiantly without ever really letting on how hard he has found it.

It is just that, as the man who is now a double Ashes winner, a winning English World Cup captain and a batsman who, at 34, has finally found an expansive side to his game, it is a battle that he is finally winning.

We are talking at Slaley Hall, where Collingwood indulges his 'obsession' with golf, and close to where this warrior of England has always called home. He was born in Shotley Bridge and lives just outside nearby Consett, returning whenever he can to surround himself in his comfort blanket of North East life.

"My whole family and friends are still here," says Collingwood. "They tend not to go outside their own community; don't travel too far from this neck of the woods. It's great for my wife to have this network around her while I'm away and, of course, the people here never let me get too far ahead of myself.

"There are lots of times when we can float away in that little bubble of ours but when I come back I realise how hard life is in the outside world. It brings me back to earth because a lot of my friends are struggling as much as anybody these days."

Exceptional things

Contentment has arrived late for Collingwood. For much of his 10 years with England he has seemed on the brink of being dropped, always having to prove his worth to the outside world. But, in his cricketing dotage, he has become the player he has always wanted to be.

"In the past year or so we've done some exceptional things as a team and the environment we've got is as good as any I've experienced," says Collingwood. "That has energised and refreshed me. We have a great set of lads who are enjoying each other's success and trying to get better all the time. The exciting thing is we can get better."

Including Collingwood. This old dog has learned plenty of new tricks in a changing world and is clearing the ropes now more than ever, as well as still being able to produce the rearguard actions that saved Tests at Cardiff, Centurion and Cape Town.

"I've been scrapping all my career and, the way the game is developing and with all the kids coming through, I had to take my game to the next level," he said. "I've been at so many crossroads but it was before we went to South Africa last winter that I decided I had to be more aggressive. Andy Flower was very supportive. I can always fall back on what I was, but to win Tests I had to have the game to do it. It was what I needed at a time when my place was being questioned again."

Ah yes, we are always questioning his place. It only takes a failure or two

"Listen, I've got no qualms with the way I've been written off," he insists. "The obvious reason is that I'm not the easiest on the eye. It's as simple as that. You are always going to question the guy who doesn't look so good but, as Graham Gooch says, we are runscorers as much as batsmen. It doesn't matter how we get them. Doug Bollinger kept on telling me at Lord's last week that I can only hit the ball on the leg side and I said to him, "Yeah, I do to be honest. You're right. And I'll keep on hitting it there because you get just as many runs for that as you do hitting lovely cover drives".