England's bowlers under pressure to lift

Jan 24, 2017 - 1:12 AM England cricket coach Trevor Bayliss has warned his one-day bowlers there is a queue forming to gatecrash the Champions Trophy squad.

Bayliss has just seen his 50-over side lose 2-1 in a series against India and, before attention moves to the three-match Twenty20 leg, there was time for the Australian to review what he saw in Pune, Cuttack and Kolkata.

The batting unit emerged firmly in credit despite defeat, racking up scores of 350, 366 and 321, and no surprises are likely on that front when the 15-man party is named in April.

The same may not be true of the bowling ranks, where Chris Woakes is perhaps alone in feeling fully established and on form.

Liam Plunkett, Jake Ball and David Willey are the men in possession of the specialist seam places but Bayliss is still looking for more - from them, or somebody else.

"The batting is probably pretty close to what we'll go in with, barring injuries or bad loss of form, but the bowlers would be disappointed with their lack of consistency on a good length in the series," he said.

"Our achilles heel has been taking wickets on flat pitches when the ball's not moving around. We've taken wickets early but when the pitch has flattened out and the ball's lost its shine it's been more difficult. That's certainly an area we're continuously working on and we have to improve on it."

Potential replacements include a fit-again Mark Wood, the experienced Stuart Broad and Steven Finn, as well as Tymal Mills, who currently operates as a Twenty20 specialist on fitness grounds.

"We'll see how Tymal goes in these T20s ... whether 10 overs is a little too far for him I don't know," Bayliss said.

Source: AAP