ENGLAND are backing Dawid Malan to relocate his world-beating Twenty20 form in their series decider against India today.

Yorkshire star Malan is ranked as the format’s number one international batsman, having put together a phenomenal sequence of scores between his recall in November 2019 and the end of 2020, but has been quiet over the past four games, scoring just 80 runs at a strike rate of only 103.89.

But assistant coach Paul Collingwood has every faith Malan is ready to do damage, with a 2-2 scoreline providing the perfect stage heading into today’s ‘final’.

“Dawid hasn’t quite found his rhythm on this tour but you’ve got to remember where he is in the world rankings and that’s no fluke,” said Collingwood.

“What he’s done with an England shirt on in T20 cricket is exceptional up until this series.

“He’s been unbelievably consistent, to the point where you know fine well once he gets in he will go on and get a big score. Sometimes it only takes one shot that comes out of the middle of the bat that gets you going again - we have all been there.

“Hopefully (this match) is the day. One thing this team has done in the past four years, this new era of white-ball cricket, is back their cricketers.

“As a player, you need security of knowing you’re not going to get dropped after a couple of games, because we do ask a lot of them. They go out there and are expected to score at strike-rates of up to 140. If you look at his record, Dawid Malan does exactly that for us.”