PAUL COLLINGWOOD insists England now have a squad to rival any nation in world cricket as he gets set to lock horns with Pakistan this week at Trent Bridge.

The 34-year-old from Shotley Bridge has enjoyed a golden 12 months in an England jersey, winning the World Twenty20 and regaining the Ashes, while he also became his country’s all-time leading one-day run scorer.

The introduction of Ajmal Shahzad, Steve Finn, Eoin Morgan and Tim Bresnan in recent weeks to bolster an already impressive squad is proof; according to Collingwood that England is now a match for anyone in world cricket.

With a trip to Australia to defend the Ashes now firmly on the horizon, Collingwood insists a morale-boosting win against international cricket’s most inconsistent nation Pakistan – they did beat Australia last time out – is crucial ahead of this winter’s challenge.

“What we’re starting to get now are 15 or 16 players who can come in at any time to play international cricket and that is a great position to be in,” said Collingwood.

“If you do lose players through injury or if anyone has a dip in form, you know that you’ve got guys in the back-up that you can rely on.

“We haven’t always been able to say that and it’s a very healthy position to be in now.

“With us resting players, it does give other people opportunities to come in.

“You look at a lot of the guys who have gone away playing county cricket and they’ve been stepping up their game and putting pressure on the rest of us.

“This will be crucial against Pakistan because when they’re hot, they can be a very hard team to beat because they’ve got a lot of skill in their side, certainly in their bowling.

“But when they’re poor you can get on top of them and put them under a lot of pressure.

I think what we have to do is concentrate on what we’ve done well over the last 18 months and build for Australia.”

A lot has been made of the performances of Pakistan’s teenage seamer Mohammad Aamer, who destroyed Australia earlier this month and has already taken over 30 wickets in his first ten Test matches.

But Collingwood dismissed suggestions Pakistan’s youthful attack was better than England’s ahead of this summer’s Test series, which inevitably will be spearheaded by Stuart Broad and James Anderson once more.

“I think they’ve got a lot of talent but to say they’ve got the best attack in the world is over the mark,” he added.

“They’ve come up against conditions recently, where the ball has done a fair bit. I still think we can handle what Pakistan will throw at us.

“It’s one batter against one bowler at a time and you’ve got to try and fight it out when the conditions are in the bowler’s favour.

“That will help to put the pressure back on them and I think we’ve been through periods over the last 18 months where there have been pressure situations and we’ve come out of them pretty well.

“We’re pretty confident – we always get questions about whether we can handle pace in Australia and whether we can handle swing against Pakistan, which we have done in the past. We’ll be looking to combat it again in the next four games.”

■ In:play betting with Sportingbet.com takes cricket fans to the heart of the action. Bet live, ball by ball, minute by minute on England v Pakistan with English Cricket’s best bet at www.sportingbet.com/englishcricket