Paul Collingwood, a brilliant all-rounder from England has put his hand in the air to take over the captaincy from Michael Vaughn. He has made his intentions known to the ECB and the selectors pro-actively. Collingwood scored a blistering 128 to take England onto safe waters and has been a dependable player of late. His form has been much better and illustrious in the test matches than in the one dayers.

Talking about becoming the next England captain - “If I was asked I think it would be very hard to turn down. [But] there will be a few people who will be up for the job.”

I think the real captain is somebody who puts his hand on the prize and claims it rather than wait for it to land in his palm. Collingwood has shown great guts and it will definitely hard for ECB to overlook this consistent performer. Playing in one genre; captaincy is a totally different dimension. All good cricketers don’t make great captains (like Tendulkar) and if Collingwood clinches the top job, all doubts would be cleared once the results are out.

It may not be easy for Collingwood to enthrone captaincy as there are other senior cricketers waiting in the wings like Kevin Pietersen and Ian Bell; Andrew Strauss may get a second term as well.