England captain Paul Collingwood said there was a "major problem" with the rules for rain-affected matches after his side's eight-wicket loss to the West Indies in their World Twenty20 opener.

England made 191 for five, a challenging total in this format, here on Monday after being sent in to bat.

But, after a couple of downpours, the West Indies were left with a revised target of 60 in six overs under the Duckworth-Lewis method, which they achieved with a ball to spare.

The system, devised by English statisticians Frank Duckworth and Tony Lewis, has been widely regarded as the fairest yet in deciding rain-affected matches.

But there are signs it is struggling to come to terms with scoring rates in Twenty20, which wasn't even on the horizon when the method was first used back in 1997.

Monday's defeat was the second time in a year England had lost under the Duckworth-Lewis method to the West Indies in the World TWenty20 and left them with a winner- takes-all clash against Ireland here on Tuesday to join the hosts in the second round Super Eights.

"I think 95 per cent of the time when you put 191 runs on the board you are going to win the game," said Collingwood.

"I don't know what equation you should have but you shouldn't have that one.

"We've played a near perfect game but we've lost," the all-rounder added.

"There's a major problem with this Duckworth-Lewis in this form of the game," Colingwood insisted.

’I've got no problems with it in the 50-over form. But I know it's made us very frustrated tonight.

"It certainly has to be revised for this form of the game."

West Indies captain Chris Gayle, who opted to field first, had some sympathy for England having seen his side knock the then hosts out of last year's World 1Wenty20 at The Oval in similar circumstances.

"I would support what Collingwood just said. I could have been in the same position as well," Gayle added.

"It's something that can be addressed, so it can be 'even Stevens' for both teams in the future.

'T'm happy, but it's just unfortunate for England."

Previous systems led to farcical conclusions such as at the 1992 World Cup in Australia where South Africa went from needing 22 runs off 13 balls to beat England in the semifinal to an impossible 21 runs off one ball following a rain break.

One of Duckworth-Lewis's advantages is that when a game is being threatened by rain the system is flexible enough for the target to change depending upon the number of wickets lost, rewarding the fielding side for dismissing opposition batsmen.

Now though the problem seems to be when play resumes after a rain break and the team batting second is left with a fixed target in a compressed number of overs that bears little relation to the first innings total.