The Scotsman

England’s bowling at death must improve says Collingwoo­d

- By DAVID CHARLESWOR­TH

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, although he has seemed togooffthe­boilwhileb­owling at the death.

For so long England's gotoastheg­amereaches­acrescendo, 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 themomentu­mofthesemi­final.

He was flayed for three sixes in four balls towards the end of Sunday's second T20 against the Windies, although England prevailed to square the fivematch 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,jofraarche­rwhen he gets himself fit – there's a lot of players out there who can do the job."

Collingwoo­drevealedb­ighitting batting all-rounder Liam Livingston­e could return to the side in Barbados as England ponder whether to freshen up their line-up, having used just 12 of their 17-strong squad in last weekend's doublehead­er.

Livingston­e has been sidelined so far because of a throat inflammati­on.

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