Chris Jordan, once Eoin Morgan's Mr Reliable, is starting to run out of road

Besides World Cups, England’s Twenty20 side live a curiously peripatetic existence: generally the first place from which all-format players are rested, and often where new England players are introduced.

Chris Jordan has been the nearest to an ever-present in the team: he has played 65 of England’s past 67 T20 internationals, going back to November 2015 – more even than the captain, Eoin Morgan.

England’s trust in Jordan in T20 cricket has been well earned. Jordan is an effervescent three-dimensional cricketer. To go with his seam bowling, he is perhaps the best fielder in the world, and as the first two internationals in Barbados have shown, a lower-order batsman adept at selflessly giving a top-order batsman the strike or taking the lead himself. He is also a hugely valued member of the squad, a senior player who helps younger ones settle and provides essential advice to Morgan on and off the field.

And yet all these qualities cannot obscure that, increasingly, Jordan’s primary skill is a worry for England. In the World Cup semi-final against New Zealand in Abu Dhabi and in the second T20 international against the West Indies on Sunday, he was tasked with bowling when victory appeared almost assured. He bowled the 17th over in Abu Dhabi, when New Zealand needed 57 from 24 balls, and the 18th in Bridgetown, when the West Indies needed 61 from 18 balls.

What followed was strikingly similar. In Abu Dhabi and Bridgetown, Jordan ended his overs with a fine yorker that yielded only a single. The problem was what came before. On both occasions, Jordan was charged with defending a shorter boundary – but was heaved over the ropes, and was then called for a wide trying to bowl very wide outside off stump. Luck was against him in the UAE and Barbados alike – Jonny Bairstow caught Jimmy Neesham in the deep in Abu Dhabi, but his knees were touching the boundary rope; Morgan missed a chance off Akeal Hosein in Bridgetown. The upshot was that both overs cost 23 runs apiece.

These poor displays have not been isolated: bowling the final over in an IPL game in 2020, Jordan conceded 30. In his past 17 T20 internationals he has conceded 10.8 an over at the death, taking seven wickets at 44.4 apiece. In the same period, his team-mates have conceded half a run per over fewer at the death, as well as taken wickets far more regularly. Jordan, selected primarily for his death-bowling prowess, has underperformed his team-mates in this phase of the game.

Paul Collingwood, England’s acting head coach, admitted that Jordan’s recent returns at the death were a concern. “CJ gives you a lot in other parts of the game – he’s the perfect kind of T20 cricketer. But in the end that death bowling is something we need to improve on,” Collingwood said.

“Whether it’s CJ, whether it’s [Reece] Topley, [Tymal] Mills, Mark Wood, [Chris] Woakes – there are a lot of players out there who can do the job. Jofra [Archer] when he gets himself fit. We just have to make sure that we can rely on four or five to do the job at any given time.”

Collingwood suggested that England’s preference to bat first if they win the toss is not just linked to their desire to improve batting first, but also to challenge their death bowlers. “Death bowling really gets tested only under serious pressure when you’re bowling second.”

In many ways Jordan is a quintessential death bowler: his defining delivery is his yorker. A perfectly executed yorker is the hardest ball to hit at the death. But a yorker is death-or-glory: err a fraction too full or too short, and the result is a half-volley or full toss. In Abu Dhabi and Bridgetown, a Jordan-attempted yorker yielded a four.

“The majority of our plan today was to bowl yorkers, use the long side, and we missed,” Morgan said after Sunday’s one-run victory.

As the yorker has moved out of fashion, and the margins for delivering it have become finer as batsmen have become more adept at eviscerating low full tosses, so England have moved away from using the ball at the death.

Instead, they increasingly embrace “hard lengths” – bowling just short of a length into the pitch.

Jordan has adapted his approach too. Indeed, both his 23-run overs featured a number of hard-length deliveries. The problem was that several of these were carted over the on side for six. While attempting hard lengths gives bowlers more margin of error in length, they need to be even more accurate in their line. In Abu Dhabi and Bridgetown alike, Jordan strayed too far wide of off stump or too straight, allowing batsmen to swing the ball off their hips.

Jordan’s greatest problem has been his accuracy, Collingwood said. But, he added: “It is a tough, tough job.”

Few know that better than Jordan. At the age of 33, his performances over the last three games in Barbados might determine whether he remains a member of England’s first-choice T20 side.