Paul Collingwood column

By Paul Collingwood England all-rounder in Pakistan

Even from 4,000 miles away in Lahore, I can tell what's been wrong with Manchester United recently. It's their new centre-forward Michael Vaughan.

Marcus Trescothick's confidence must be sky-high after a magnificent century on a difficult surface

Our first hotel on this tour had 50-inch-wide television screens on the bedroom walls, which was magnificent for the PlayStation.

We've started a Fifa 2005 league and you can programme in your own players.

Ashley Giles' Spanish cousin Ghi-les is up front for Arsenal and there's a bloke with bright ginger hair and a big nose playing for Chelsea called "Collywood".

The other guys have been playing quite a long time and I've been terrible but I won my first match on Thursday.

Vaughany was 2-0 up at the time when Collywood hit a hat-trick and Chelsea won 4-2. I think his manager's having a word with him at the moment.

More importantly, we got a victory on the cricket field in our opening match, despite not playing our best in Rawalpindi.

It was good to win, but as long as we get what we need out of these games that's the key thing.

Getting the mileage back in the legs was important. It's amazing how much being out in the field takes its toll when you haven't done it for a while.

Marcus Trescothick's confidence must be sky-high after a magnificent century on a difficult surface.

It would have been nice for a few more batsmen to have had some time at the crease.

But hopefully the wicket for the next three-day match, which starts on Sunday, will be a little bit flatter and more people will have an opportunity.

I got a start in the second innings and enjoyed bowling 11 overs. The ball swung throughout the match, which was great.

There's been no indication yet from management whether I'll be playing in the Tests or not but I'm keeping my fingers crossed

But it would be dangerous to expect that in the Test matches - we know the tracks will be a lot flatter than that.

There's talk in the papers that they may favour the spinners but our team now covers all bases so they can prepare what they want.

We believe we're good enough to cope with whatever they prepare.

There's been no indication yet from management whether I'll be playing in the Tests or not but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

And if I get the opportunity to do a bit more in this game that would help.

Once again our fitness regime has been pretty punishing so far as being on a tour like this is a good opportunity to focus on it.

As soon as we arrived there was a pool session to get the journey out of our legs

Every morning we've been up at 8am, going straight in the pool, having breakfast and then cricket practice.

We've got a buddy system where you have the same partner for the pool, the gym and the nets. My buddy's Vaughany so I can't exactly skip anything!

Everybody's excited and eager to continue the form we had during the summer.

The Ashes was huge and we all enjoyed the success and everything that went with it but we all know we have to move on from that.

There's certainly no one sitting around thinking they have done it all. This is a new challenge and everybody is up for it.