Forget the scoreline. Four-nil is good but four finds would be even better, and England are almost there. In the first three games in Zimbabwe they learned that Matthew Hoggard will be a crucial member of the 2003 World Cup squad and that Jeremy Snape isn't far behind. After Wednesday's win, they can now add Paul Collingwood to that list. On Sunday Collingwood added 72 for the fifth wicket with Andy Flintoff -- now a grizzled veteran by comparison -- to breathe life into a run-chase that was dying on its feet. And yesterday, to show that was no fluke, Collingwood helped Flintoff put on 97, again for the fifth wicket, with the no-nonsense assurance of a Graham Thorpe. He went on to make 77. Throw in some canny slower balls, and the fact that Collingwood had Andy Flower caught behind twice during that innings of 142*, and England could be looking at a top-six batsman who can fiddle through 10 slippery overs.

It isn't merely the runs Collingwood has scored, but the way he has scored them. His innings of 36 in the third match showed what a good cricket brain he has. He quickly abandoned his policy of trying to hit the spinners square the whole time with cuts and sweeps and started using a vertical bat to hit them down the ground -- as Flintoff was doing at the other end. Some England one-day allrounders have taken an entire career to work out that this method presents fewer risks (and Mark Ealham's place is under threat more than ever now).

The 77 was even better. OK, so he was dropped on 1, but, as Michael Vaughan has done in his brief career so far, Collingwood didn't dwell on his error. He used his feet to both the quicks and the spinners, flat-batted Henry Olonga over square leg for six, and upset Grant Flower with a reverse sweep for two. Thoughtful, but not over-serious, innovative, but not gratuitously so: his performances so far have shed a different light on Steve Waugh's remark in July that Collingwood seemed to be made of the right stuff -- a comment which at the time sounded like another thinly veiled piece of Aussie kidology to keep a sub-standard player in the England team.

Collingwood has so far only done the business against Zimbabwe, whose slow, low pitches must remind him of the green, green grass of Durham. South African wickets tend to be a lot quicker. But the evidence so far is that Collingwood is a cricketing chameleon: he blends nicely into local surroundings by adapting his game whenever he has to. England must now give him an extended run and allow him to get as much experience as possible before 2003. By then, even Steve Waugh might be wishing he'd kept his mough shut.

Lawrence Booth is assistant editor of Wisden.com

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