Catching Shivnarine Chanderpaul in 2009. Collingwood says he could not compete with today’s best fielders

Ask a retired professional cricketer what he misses about the game and the camaraderie of the dressing room, the sense of routine and meaning that comes from honing a craft, and the competitiveness on the field would feature high on the list. Pre-season training? Fielding drills? Warm-ups? Not so much.

Paul Collingwood, Durham’s captain in four-day cricket, is 41 next month, and has been playing professionally since 1995, more than two decades on the road. He is not quite the oldest swinger in county cricket but he remains one of three survivors from the great Ashes series of 2005 still playing championship cricket, and is very much an elder statesman of the domestic game.

There is not a warm-up routine, a fielding drill or a