PAUL Collingwood wondered this week whether Durham were the new Surrey. Perhaps they are, although hopefully they'll never be nicknamed "showboats".

Prior to Durham's elevation to first-class status only eight cricketers born within the county had played for England, and they included Bob Willis, who left Sunderland when he was six weeks old.

For Durham 14 years later to have three in the national team is astounding. Never mind that one hails from Northumberland and one from Middlesbrough, the fact is that both might never have played first-class cricket but for Durham spotting their potential and giving them every encouragement.

The last time one county had so many players in the Test team was for the fifth game in the home series against South Africa in 2003, when the Showboats provided four - Butcher, Thorpe, Stewart and Bicknell. At the start of that summer Yorkshire provided three - Vaughan, Hoggard and McGrath - for the first Test against Zimbabwe at Lord's.

The fact that McGrath did well enough but was quickly jettisoned, then Kent's Robert Key scored a double century against the West Indies the following summer, should remind Collingwood that one good score offers no guarantees.

But his all-round contribution and his sheer determination to succeed have seen him become part of the furniture in a way that McGrath and Key never were. If everyone is fit and available he will not be in the team for the first Test against India in March, but he has proved his right to be the first reserve.

Given the amount of injuries these days - some are bound to rupture themselves gormlessly trying to sweep - and the frequency with which players disappear to be present at a birth that should give him plenty of opportunities.

The admirable Collingwood has been writing a Sunday newspaper column since going to Pakistan, in which he said this week: "I will enjoy making a few journalists eat their words. I have been reading that I haven't got what it takes to make runs at this level. But then English cricket writers have always tended to pick out individuals for criticism."

As one of those writers who openly doubted him was Geoffrey Boycott at least it might prove to those players who believe a mere wordsmith has no right to criticise them that someone most of them admire can get it wrong.

DONCASTER, team of the moment, share with Darlington the dubious distinction that their former owner was jailed. Not for tax evasion, but for hiring a former SAS man to burn down the main stand.

Rovers subsequently spent six years outside the Football League before they were revived by a man who made £25m from selling the cosmetic surgery company responsible for enhancing Melinda Messenger's best assets.

While George Reynolds made a huge boob in building a grandiose stadium he couldn't afford, which appears to have done the Quakers little good, Doncaster are now able to contemplate moving to a more conservative 15,750-seat stadium at a time when they are so upwardly mobile they have knocked Manchester City and Aston Villa out of the Carling Cup.

ANDY Murray must be confident that his future is secure if he feels he can bite the hand that fed him. Although he turned his back on the Lawn Tennis Association at the age of 15 to go to an academy in Spain, the LTA did provide around a third of the cost.

He may well be right to say the LTA ruined his brother Jamie's game, but it transpires that the elder Murray is a much different animal. He says: "Andy hates losing, but I probably find it much easier to accept defeat." As the Aussies would say: "Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser."

IS Kielder Forest still standing or has it been wiped out to provide the newsprint for the zillions of words written in honour - or in some cases condemnation - of George Best? He was most commonly described as a flawed genius, reminding me for some obscure reason that in the days when we used to dictate our reports to copy-takers it appeared in one newspaper that a batsman had scored a floorless century. Perhaps Best, therefore, was a floored genius given the number of times he must have toppled off bar stools.

ANOTHER flawed genus is Brian Lara, who this week toppled Allan Border as the leading run scorer in Test cricket. It might be a good thing in the sense that Lara brings far more artistry to batting than the gritty Aussie, but while Border dragged up a modest team by their bootstraps to become the best in the world, Lara's reign has coincided with a dreadful decline in West Indian fortunes.

Even the double century which took him to his new landmark couldn't save them from defeat and, as with most of his record-breaking innings, including his 501 not out against Durham, it came in a match with nothing at stake.

Sadly, the epitaph of the most gifted batsman of his generation must carry the rider that he played largely for himself.