So long Paul Collingwood: World champion, master fielder, genuinely good man

HUW TURBERVILL: Every cricket fan is sad to see him go at 42. He has had a relatively lean season, after making 1,000 runs last summer, but his 47 in the win over Sussex this week gave me hope he might continue to defy time

^{Paul Collingwood is retiring from cricket}

Paul Collingwood will be recalled as one of England’s most redoubtable cricketers, a man who squeezed every ounce of talent from his body.

That is not to damn him with faint praise, however. Anybody who scores an Ashes double-century against Australia at Adelaide (2006/07), facing Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Brett Lee, can play.

Every cricket fan is sad to see him go at 42. He has had a relatively lean season, after making 1,000 runs last summer, but his 47 in the win over Sussex this week gave me hope he might continue to defy time.

He will slip effortlessly into coaching, whether at Durham, Scotland, England (he has already be on the roster with both of those international sides) or beyond.

^{Collingwood was a stalwart in the England team}

He has been an absolute custodian and stalwart of Durham cricket. There was no chance of him jumping ship when they were forcibly relegated for financial reasons in 2016, only three years after he had led them to the title and two after they won the Royal London One-Day Cup. The always-honest Collingwood termed it "a kick in the nuts".

No doubt he will remain in the north east. He lives and breathes sport in the area, playing his testimonial cricket match in the colours of his beloved AFC Sunderland.

It was those international displays that will remain foremost in our minds, though, winning 68 Test caps (10 centuries), played in 197 ODIs (five) and 36 T20Is.

He became the only England captain (to date) to lift a major limited-overs trophy (the 2009 World T20). He led that stylish team in a befitting manner, and scored the winning runs in the final. David Cameron congratulated ‘Colin Wood’ for the win, but that is another story…

^{The allrounder is a club legend at Durham}

He was also a three-time Ashes winner (2005, 2009, 2010/11 – he retired at the end of the latter).

He was fine fielder and a real presence in the field. He took Warne on with conviction, never backing down verbally against the intimidating Australian. Warne mocked him for being given an MBE for his cameo in the 2005 Ashes (he came in for the final Test at The Oval for the injured Simon Jones), but there was mutual respect there.

Steve Waugh identified him as somebody to watch early on, in fact, in 2001, despite an incredibly modest baptism in the international game against Australia in a one-sided one-day series.

At one stage it looked as if he would not play very much. He seemed to be England’s perpetual bridesmaid. They liked having him around, and Duncan Fletcher was a huge fan, but he could not displace Andrew Strauss, Marcus Trescothick, Nasser Hussain, Michael Vaughan, Mark Butcher and Graham Thorpe for obvious reasons.

I can testify that he was an excellent tourist. He bided his time, though, and the caps came.

^{Collingwood and David Cameron at a Downing Street event to celebrate England's World T20 win}

In ODIs he finished with 5,092 runs, a then England record, and he has still played the most games, 12 more than Morgan (who has now scored the most runs, 5,618).

He was a very handy bowler in one-day cricket, with a full array of cutters and slower balls, but it was his batting that was his main suit.

His concentration was excellent, and he was a very strong cutter.

It was such a shame England subsided at Adelaide, because he played brilliantly in the first innings for his 206, in tandem with Kevin Pietersen, who made 158. The far more gifted KP respected him, which cannot be said about all England players he played with.

That winter he also made successive centuries in the VB Series as England won, rather remarkably after their Ashes whitewash.

Vaughan returned as captain for that series and knew what we all came to realise – Collingwood is a good man to have around.