England will miss Paul Collingwood as the one-day captain misses the first two games against South Africa after his punishment for a level three offence in the ICC code of conduct.

It’s unusual for a captain to be suspended - Collingwood is the first England player ever to be banned by the ICC - but it is his responsibility to ensure that his side are bowling at a reasonable pace and, while some people tried to justify the slow over rate at the match at the Oval, it was his second offence in 12 months so a ban was always on the cards.

In addition to the ban, the rest of the England side were fined 15 per cent of their match fee. It might only be a one-day game, but that’s a lot of money to lose because of your captain’s inability to do his job.

The one-dayers against New Zealand were incident-packed and, despite high hopes after the heroics at Durham’s Riverside, England were largely disappointing for the remaining games.

The problem England have to deal with is that they are better with Collingwood than without him. Kevin Pietersen is a fantastic batsman and may be a future captain, but at the moment you want him to be focused on his batting, not captaining a side as well.

Out of the current crop of one-day players, there are no real stand-out captains to see England through the match against Scotland and the first one-dayer against South Africa, but it’s likely that the ECB will name Pietersen as captain for those games as well, even if Pietersen thinks that the 50-over game will die soon.

Disappointingly for Collingwood, he will also miss England’s only Twenty20 game against South Africa before they face Stanford’s All-Stars in November. While his place in the one-day team may be a cert, he’s not guaranteed to make the Twenty20 team, and that’s where the money is.

South Africa will pose a far greater test than New Zealand later in the year, and England could be out of the series against the second-best one-day side in the world before Collingwood can come back and have an influence.

Back in June 2007 when Collingwood was announced as the ODI captain, chairman of selectors David Graveney believed that his experience and performances in the one-day game made him the ideal candidate to lead the side, despite not having much in the way of captaincy experience.

A year on, you’d have thought that Collingwood would have got to grips with the pace of the game and, while he might still be one of the best one-day players in the world at the moment, he still has a long way to go to become one of the game’s greats.

Back in May the Professional Cricketers’ Association named Collingwood England’s MVP based on the cumulative points for every run scored, wicket taken and catch held, with Collingwood top of the 50-over and Twenty20 forms of the game.

You can argue that by being banned he is not doing his country much good, and it’s a valid argument, but when available he’s one of the first names on the team sheet - opposition captains would go so far as to welcome his omission.

Ultimately, Collingwood should remain as the England captain until he decides to retire, or else makes a mistake so grave that his position as captain becomes untenable.