Collingwood ready for SA challenge

England's tour of South Africa gets properly underway in Bloemfontein on Friday when they take on the Diamond Eagles in their opening warm-up match, and for Paul Collingwood, the fixture provides the first chance to lay the team's foundations ahead of what promises to be a hotly contested winter.

Graeme Smith, South Africa's captain, has been quick to crank up the psychological pressure ahead of a long tour that encompasses two Twenty20s, five ODIs and four Tests, but Collingwood believes that the task of taking on one of the top-ranked sides in the world will be more than enough to keep England's thoughts on the job in hand.

"I think there have been a few comments in the press, but we're honestly 100% focused on what we need to do," Collingwood told reporters at the conclusion of the team's final training session at the University of the Free State. "We don't need any more motivation, this is a huge series for us. Playing the No. 1 side in the world in their back yard is going to be a big challenge for us. We're very, very excited to get going and looking forward to playing against them."

England's form in limited-overs cricket is rarely better than patchy, although they can currently boast an improbable run of successes against South Africa, with five wins and a wash-out in their last six meetings. The most recent encounter was particularly galling for Smith's men - a 22-run defeat in the Champions Trophy in September, a result that knocked South Africa out of the competition on home soil.

Nevertheless, Collingwood believes that recent history will count for nothing when the teams reconvene next Friday in the first Twenty20 in Johannesburg. "I wouldn't say we have a psychological edge, no. I think it's safe to say they're the No. 1 side in the world and you don't become No. 1 just overnight. That takes a long time. They're a very well-drilled unit, we know that.

"I think we can take a lot of confidence from how we've played against them - the last five or six games, obviously we've won them all. But it's going to be a tough series, and we've got a long way to go before we play to our best. But we know that if we do play to our best, we can beat anybody on the day. So hopefully we'll have more days like that."

Collingwood will once again lead England in the Twenty20 leg of their tour, and believes that confident cricket is the best route to success against South Africa. "We've probably played our best cricket when we've been bold, going out there and taking it to the opposition," he said. "But on the other hand, you have a bit of a hiccup playing like that all the time as well. We've just got to make sure we attack on the right times and on the right wickets.

"Obviously we're playing around the country on different wickets, so we'll just have to adjust on each and every ground we turn up on. We want to start off well, we want to win the games, but also get the right kind of practice out of it as well."