England’s death bowling must improve, admits Paul Collingwood

Paul Collingwood believes Chris Jordan is the “perfect” Twenty20 cricketer but admits England’s shortcomings while bowling at the back end of innings have been highlighted recently.

Jordan is renowned as one of the world’s best fielders and his batting in the first two T20s against the West Indies has been a fillip in the Caribbean, although he has seemed to go off the boil while bowling at the death.

For so long England’s go-to as the game reaches a crescendo, Jordan was pummelled by Jimmy Neesham in England’s T20 World Cup loss against New Zealand in November, leaking 23 in the over that shifted the momentum of the semi-final.

He was flayed for three sixes in four balls towards the end of Sunday’s second T20 against the Windies, who came within two runs of pulling off a terrific heist, although England prevailed to square the five-match series.

Collingwood refused to single out any individuals, preferring to highlight the overall contributions of England’s all-time leading T20 wicket-taker, but he acknowledged they must improve their bowling in the pressure scenarios.

He said: “CJ gives you a lot in other parts of the game, of course. He’s the perfect kind of T20 cricketer. But in the end that death bowling is something we need to improve on.

“We can’t hide away from the fact that it is an area that, if we get right, then it is a very formidable side. We just have to make sure that we can rely on four or five to do the job at any given time.

“Whether it’s CJ, whether it’s Reece Topley, Tymal Mills, Mark Wood, Chris Woakes, Jofra Archer when he gets himself fit – there’s a lot of players out there who can do the job.”

Collingwood revealed big-hitting batting all-rounder Liam Livingstone could return to the side as