Prior misses final day with finger injury

Matt Prior didn't take the field on the final day against West Indies at Chester-le-Street due to the finger injury he picked up on the fourth afternoon. Although x-rays cleared him of any fracture to his right ring finger, the medical advice was that he shouldn't keep wicket. In his absence, Paul Collingwood continued as emergency wicketkeeper on his home ground.

However, it was later confirmed that no cover would be called in for the one-day series which starts at Headingley on Thursday and Andrew Strauss said that keeping Prior off the field had been purely precautionary.

Collingwood certainly didn't disgrace himself with the gloves on the fourth evening and was desperate to claim his first catch as a keeper. Twice there were huge appeals turned down for edges off Chris Gayle and he only let through one set of byes.

"I though he kept fantastically well," Stuart Broad said at the close of the fourth day's play. "He looked as though he should have been in the 1950s with his pads on loose and his cap on straight. I thought he was going to get a screamer of a catch at one stage down the leg side, he was sprawling everywhere. I think he's fairly pleased with his efforts."

Prior didn't emerge with the team after the tea interval on Sunday having suffered the blow shortly before the break while trying to stop a delivery from Tim Bresnan that bounced in front of him. He needed a couple of minutes of treatment before seeing out the middle session, but he was clearly in pain and it was decided during the break that a trip to hospital was in order.

Ravi Bopara was also absent from the field on the fifth morning of the match, after suffering swelling on his knee from a blow sustained on the fourth evening. But, he too, isn't a concern ahead of the first ODI.