Paul Collingwood's throwing masterclass

By Paul Collingwood England batsman

England kick off the summer against the West Indies on Thursday in the first npower Test, and I have to say these are exciting times to be involved in the squad.

We know we've had a disappointing winter, especially being heavily beaten by a great Australian side, but there are massive positives going into the series against the Windies.

Everyone I've spoken to has spoken very highly of Peter Moores

Peter Moores has taken over as coach now and it's the start of a new era.

Every single player in the squad wants to get back to winning ways and get back to playing excellent cricket and the biggest positive for us right now is that all the players want to respond in the right manner.

I've not worked under Peter yet, although we had a brief chat when I was up with the performance squad in Loughborough last week, but all I've heard about him is positive.

Everyone I've spoken to, whether they have played under Peter at the Academy or at Sussex, have spoken very highly of him and he seems very enthusiastic and very ambitious.

All the players in the England side want to work hard on their games and having a coach like that will be great.

I expect Peter will make a few changes, whether it be with new ideas or slight changes to the routine - how we train, how long we train, when we train, that kind of thing.

But I don't think that there will be massive changes. Generally speaking over the last four or five years we have played excellent Test cricket and the way we've prepared for those matches has been pretty good, so I don't suppose there will be sweeping alterations to that.

One thing Peter has done that is new is call us all together for a team dinner this week, before our pre-Test preparations and training got underway.

Steve Harmison is excited, wants to bowl and is enjoying the game

I don't know if this will be a long-term thing, but Peter has not had a lot of time to get to know the boys, and there are a few new selections in the squad as well, so it was an opportunity for us to do that.

And, of course, we also have a new captain in Andrew Strauss for Thursday's match, with Michael Vaughan unfortunate to be injured again.

It's absolutely fantastic for Andrew and fantastic for the team as well. He did a great job last summer when we won the series against Pakistan convincingly and played some good cricket.

His approach to the captaincy is excellent and he thoroughly deserves another chance at it.

Of course it's disappointing for Michael. It must feel like a killer blow to have worked so hard to come back to fitness after his knee problems only to get one on the finger, and off an Australian bowler too.

But he will be back soon enough and hopefully it won't affect the captaincy-coach relationship that needs to be built as soon as possible.

One man who will be there, though, is Steve Harmison, who has been absolutely magnificent for Durham this season.

The captaincy is absolutely fantastic for Andrew and for the team as well

He has responded to the disappointment of the Ashes in the way he was asked to, and the way he had to. He realised what he needed to do and he's done it.

He's bowled in good areas and, even better than that, at real pace. He's excited, wants to bowl and is enjoying the game, and that's key.

And it's the same for all of us really. We're all looking to knuckle down and do really well against the West Indies.

This series is about winning Tests, gradually building the confidence and continuing to improve.

We certainly won't be underestimating West Indies, that's for sure. Brian Lara might have stepped down now, but the one thing that is always apparent with the Windies is that they are unpredictable and that's the scary thing.

They can come out, all guns blazing, and if you're not prepared you can get blown away so we won't be going into the game lightly. I'm sure as long as we're on the ball we'll be fine.

Like I say, these are exciting times for English cricket. We need to make sure as a team we gel, put in performances and continue to build going forward so that the next time we go up against the Australians we can beat them.

If we continue to push and challenge ourselves, we'll keep getting better and be able to topple the Aussies. The hard work starts now.