Collingwood bubbling with revivalist spirit

England have arrived in the West Indies for the World Cup more in hope than expectation. This represents progress: until four weeks ago you would have stood accused of rampant over-optimism for assessing their plight as desperate.

Instead, the players who landed in St Vincent on Friday evening are suddenly overflowing with all those attributes sportsmen crave: belief, confidence, trust, assurance, you name it. The triumph in the triangular series last month against Australia and New Zealand was so improbable that in four matches England were transformed from stumblebums clutching a one-way ticket to Palookaville into contenders with real class.

Related articles

• Presidency deadlock highlights deep ICC divisions
• Search the news archive for more stories

The man at the forefront of this renewal is Paul Collingwood, together with Andrew Flintoff the most capped man in the party. Collingwood has always been a substantial cricketer, simply because he has always made the utmost of his ability, but in Australia in February he stretched it beyond the imagination. "It was one win, wasn't it," he said. "Something kickstarted us. Whether it was Ed Joyce's hundred I don't know, but something took the pressure off our shoulders and we went out and played like we knew we could.

"If you had asked me about our chances four weeks ago I'd have said we'd be struggling to beat Bermuda. There is a massive confidence now and it's an unbelievable turnaround. They were some of the best performances I have been involved in for England."

After Joyce scored a century to drive England to necessary victory against Australia in Sydney, it was Collingwood who grabbed England as if by the scruff of their neck with successive scores of 106, 120 not out and 70. He won three consecutive man-of-the-match awards, especially remarkable because his previous 12 innings (six in Tests, six in one-dayers) since his personal triumph in the Adelaide Test had yielded 187 runs at an average of 15. "I thought every ball coming down was a hand grenade," he said.

And England have won four successive matches for the first time since 1998, discarding sequences against lesser nations. Collingwood reasons that this puts them in the frame to capture the World Cup for the first time at the ninth attempt.

At the heart of every conversation about England's prospects, however, there is a recurring theme. The presence of Michael Vaughan is beginning to take on almost mythic status. With him, England seem genuinely to believe they can get out of any hole. Collingwod said: "We all know what a good skipper he is. There are his tactical decisions, the way he always puts the opposition under pressure. Even if they've got off to a flier there always seems to be something going on in his mind which means he'll be able to drag it back, whether it's changing the power plays, having positive fielding placings with people in catching positions or bringing the spinners on. The other positive is that it lets Freddie Flintoff do his 100 per cent role elsewhere."

England will be the least experienced by some distance of the eight nations expected to qualify for the second stage. Of the other seven squads, all have a total number of one-day caps above 1,000 (India and Sri Lanka are above 2,000), but England can only muster 617 appearances.

Only five of England's 15 players have appeared in more than 50 one-dayers, eight have been in fewer than 30; both easily the least and the most respectively among the eight major nations. But the first time that any of the England hierarchy blames their lack of experience for defeat (if indeed they suffer it) they can, frankly, take a running jump. England have had four years to plan for this event, instead of which five of their squad have made debuts in the past nine months (three of them this year) and four others have been in, out and may as well have been shaking it all about at times as far as the selectors were concerned.

Even Ian Bell is a case in point. Since making his first appearance in November 2004 (with Vaughan then stipulating that he had to play because he would obviously feature in the World Cup) he has missed 20 of England's 56 matches while tinkering and meddling proceeded. Perhaps the selectors had no option. Perhaps they would not rest until they came up with the correct formula. Perhaps.

It does seem that England will stick rigidly to a gameplan which, although not revolutionary, is subtly different from that of most teams. Many coaches and pundits have kept banging on about how vital it is to plunder runs in the power plays. Yes and no, think England. They have a delicate alternative, which is to ensure that rather than merely blazing away, they preserve wickets for an onslaught at the end.

That onslaught will usually feature Kevin Pietersen, return-ing after injury. England won without him in Australia, but they would not do so in the West Indies. And yet. Rumours abound that the dressing room is not entirely hunky-dory for his presence. But every player - and they should know - protests vehemently about this view.

"You have to play to your strengths," said Collingwood. "It is about understanding what is best for you as a team. And for us that has been keeping wickets at the back end." The understanding may be vital, the fact that England have found strengths to play to is a miracle.