Collingwood keen on short-term role

Paul Collingwood admitted the temporary nature of the job persuaded him to resume the captaincy of England's Twenty20 team.

Collingwood, 32, will be in charge of his country in next month's World Twenty20 tournament having only quit as limited-overs leader last August, on the same day that Michael Vaughan relinquished his position as Test captain.

"At the time I said I would take a lot of persuading to do the job again," Collingwood explained. "That was captaining full time. This is an opportunity where I will be captaining for three weeks in a World Cup and that kind of opportunity doesn't come around every day."

Collingwood admitted he stepped down last time to safeguard his position as a batsman in all forms of the game after losing form, particularly in Test cricket.

But a resurgence with the bat since then and a personal request from new coach Andy Flower to resume control persuaded a rethink - only a matter of a couple of months ago in the wake of Kevin Pietersen stepping down, Collingwood distanced himself from the role.

He added: "A lot of things have happened since then - Andy Flower has been given the job permanently and I am excited at the opportunity to work with him.

"I thought long and hard about it and the last thing I wanted it to do was affect other parts of my game such as Test cricket - I don't think it will do so given it's just a three-week period."

Last year Collingwood revealed he had made the decision to quit the captaincy upon his recall for the Edgbaston Test against South Africa, and he knew he had made the right choice when he hit a second-innings hundred.

"I found the job was draining," he said. "There were things behind the scenes which meant you were constantly thinking about the game.

"It might be seen as selfish to have given up the captaincy to concentrate on other areas of my game but all I wanted to do since I was a kid was play at the highest level for England and that meant I had to."