Collingwood at full throttle

Paul Collingwood expects to be fully fit come Thursday following a third injection

Paul Collingwood insists he will be operating at maximum capacity when England start the npower Test series gets under way this week.

The all-rounder is set to feature in the opening Test at Lord’s after having a third and final cortisone injection in a torn muscle in the right shoulder.

Having undergone jabs prior to the Test series in Sri Lanka and the two-month tour of New Zealand, successful day-to-day rehabilitation is now the only way to avoid an operation.

The problem flared up again for Collingwood - whose medium pace supplements the four-man attack - in early-season outings with Durham.

“I guess it’s the stress you put the shoulder under and we have played a fair bit of cricket since the time I did it in Sri Lanka,” he said.

“This is the last injection I can have in this particular area, so hopefully I can keep it strong and manage it from now on.

“After the last couple of cortisones I have had, a few days later I have come in to bowl at 100%. So I have got no worries about doing that on Thursday as well.”

Cast as a one-day specialist for the first four years of his international career, Collingwood has clung to his chance since deputising for Andrew Strauss in Lahore in December 2005.

So tightly, in fact, that he has not missed a Test since - this week will represent his 30th consecutive cap.

Collingwood has "no worries" about bowling at full pace in the opening Test at Lord's

For someone who has fought so hard to get to the top, his place in the side is not something he will give up lightly.

“Of course to play the next 30 games is a massive achievement, and hopefully now I’m a better player than I ever have been,” he said. “I still scrap around for runs and I will always be that kind of player.

“But it is very hard to buy experience and to have that number of games under my belt, and with the one-dayers added in, has been a massive challenge and something I want to continue.

“The last resort is to go down the route of saying it is too sore to carry on.”

If it gets to that, and Collingwood undergoes surgery, he could be sidelined for between three and six months, meaning he would miss a sizeable chunk of England’s commitments this year.

“I know this cortisone will work for the next two months at least, and hopefully I can manage it, keep it strong and limit it to as little pain as possible,” said Collingwood.

“There are never any gaps, so how do you have three to six months off? Until the day comes when I think it is affecting me on the field and affecting my performance I am not going to worry about it.

“Surgery is the last thing I want because you miss so much cricket and you never know how you’re going to respond to it.”

Although Collingwood enters the three-Test series with just 34 runs in five innings for Durham, he has a good record at Lord’s, where he hit a hundred against West Indies in the corresponding fixture 12 months ago.

“It would have been great to come into the Test match with a hundred or a few 50s under the belt but it is a difficult time of the year to bat,” added Collingwood, who was worked over by a fiery Andrew Flintoff at in Durham’s LV County Championship game against Lancashire at Old Trafford last week.

“Fred was exceptional. I literally couldn’t lay bat on it. He was on the max, tearing in and wanting to get everybody out.”