Injured England players should recover for Bulawayo game
CricInfo - 9 October 2001
England expect to have a fully-fit squad to choose from for tomorrow's fourth encounter with Zimbabwe, despite the injuries sustained in the previous game.
Skipper Nasser Hussain (calf), Graham Thorpe (calf) and Ben Hollioake (thigh) are all taking part in today's training session after the squad travelled to Bulawayo from Harare.
Meanwhile Paul Collingwood is hoping to build on the promise he showed in the last game as England went 3-0 up in the series by making an impression on the last two games. The Durham all-rounder failed to make an impression in his first four games for England during the summer's triangular series against Pakistan and Australia.
But on Sunday Collingwood followed his first international wicket with 36
in a vital partnership with Andrew Flintoff which effectively sealed the outcome of the game.
Collingwood's immediate objective is to secure a place in the one-day squad for this winter's series in India and New Zealand, which is announced in a week's time.
"Once I got into that environment, it was a very tough series against Australia and Pakistan and I didn't do very well - I knew that, it didn't take rocket science to tell me that," Collingwood said.
"I came out here with plenty of confidence again after scoring a few runs for
Durham at the back end of the season and I wanted to do well for England.
"Last summer's experience really helped, I was playing against good teams and
good bowlers, there is the atmosphere of playing in front of a big crowd and you
can take little pointers from that."
Although his England outings in the summer did not improve Collingwood's confidence, his determined to succeed at international level was undimmed.
"I lost confidence for three or four weeks after that, but I wanted to take
that experience into this series," he said.
"When you're pulled into an England squad and you don't do very well, and
you've got high expectations of yourself, it's very disappointing.
"I'm a very ambitious lad, so I want to do well, and to perform like that
during the summer was a little gut-wrenching.
"Last summer didn't go well for me so I knew I had to come out here and play
well or I'd have been dropped - you've always got that pressure on your back and that's always at the back of your mind."
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