PAUL Collingwood was kidding nobody when he claimed dumping Australia out of the Twenty20 World Cup today would feel like any other victory.

That's the mouth-watering proposition facing the Durham star after he led England to a 50-run victory over Zimbabwe - who stunned the 50-over World Champions 24 hours earlier - to leave Australia propping up Group B and facing a humiliating early exit.

After winning the toss, Kevin Pietersen - 79 off 37 balls - inspired England to 188-9 despite a mini collapse resulting in the loss of four late wickets for just 14 runs.

And despite racing to 74 for no wicket Zimbabwe couldn't chase down the total and finished their 20 overs on 138-7 leaving England firmly in the driving seat for qualification.

The nature of England's victory means only a heavy defeat against the old enemy would send Collingwood on the first flight back to Durham and the all-rounder was quick to warn his troops against an Aussie backlash.

"If we win we go through," he said. "But to me it doesn't matter who we knock out - honest. It's all about England going through.

"We've got to approach the Australia game as normally as we can as if we start being defensive that is when you get into trouble.

"We'll approach it in exactly the same way and hopefully that will be good enough. We've got a very good team and when you've got a batting line-up like that you can go out and score some big runs.

"If we can go out there with a fearless attitude like we've talked about, we're going to make some big totals and it doesn't matter who we're playing against."

Collingwood - in tandem with the explosive Pietersen - put on exactly 100 for the fourth wicket to take the game away from Zimbabwe after a shaky start.

Openers Matt Prior and Darren Maddy put on 20 and 14 respectively before Luke Wright was caught behind by Brendan Taylor facing his first delivery.

But Pietersen's match-winning knock, including four monster sixes, along with Collingwood's enterprising contribution edged England towards the magical 200 total.

But when Pietersen was caught by Hamilton Masakadza and Collingwood was run out, England tailed off.

Owais Shah hit a booming six in his 11 run knock, while Andrew Flintoff made a run-a-ball 13 as England set Zimbabwe 189 to win.

The African's made a solid start with the opening partnership of Taylor and Vusi Sibanda reaching 78 without loss.

But all-rounder Dimitri Mascarenhas (3-18) and Surrey spinner Chris Schofield (2-15) made the key breakthroughs as the Zimbabwean middle order failed to carry on the good work of its openers.

"You're always worried in Twenty20 cricket because anything can happen," added Collingwood.

"It takes one good innings from the opposition to get them over the line. We knew it was going to be difficult once we got the fielders out and it was a sluggish outfield and to go at that same kind of pace when you're bringing the likes of Schofield and Dimitri on and so it proved.

"There are areas we can improve and we understand that.

"It will be different against Australia because they're going to bounce back from their defeat against Zimbabwe and they're going to come at us hard.

"We know that as a dressing room but if we play the cricket we believe we can play we can hopefully beat them."