Under the leadership of Jos Buttler, England are preparing for the upcoming ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024, set to be co-hosted by the West Indies and the United States of America (USA), in a four-match T20I series at home against Pakistan, to defend their title.
The same defending champions from the 2019 ODI World Cup had a horrible tournament in the last 50-over World Cup in India, where they finished at the seventh position, from the 10 teams, with only three wins in nine games, as two of those victories came against Netherlands and Bangladesh.
However, under the captaincy of their wicket-keeper batter, Jos Buttler, England are well equipped to earn their third trophy at a place, where they grab their first trophy of the tournament in the 2010 season.
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‘If there was a lack of clarity or whatever you want to call it…’ – Jos Buttler
One of the reasons behind England’s struggle in that ODI competition was their captain’s own form, as the veteran could manage only 138 runs in nine innings at an average of 15.33, as questions were raising whether the captaincy and wicket-keeper batter role was too much on Jos Buttler.
Their white-ball coach, Matthew Motts too came under the scanner, following a series of odd selections, and weird decisions on and off the field. But the England captain put a simple explanation on their struggle in India.
‘We just didn’t play well enough. The big learning for me is to try not to confuse freedom with maybe a lack of clarity,’’ Jos Buttler said during a chat on Sky Sports.
Buttler also feels that somewhere giving the players too much freedom could be a reason behind that, while from their part, the mistake was not being able to give them the clarity of roles.
‘Sometimes you’re trying to let players play with freedom and you don’t want to step in too much. But you have to make sure you don’t miss things. Even if there was a lack of clarity, or whatever you want to call it, I’d still expect us to perform better than we did,” T20 World Cup winning captain for England expressed in the same discussion.
Jos Buttler also touched on that they won’t try to reinvent their approach or look to throw the messages to the players that they never heard of. The opening batter predicted that the whole tournament won’t be only about scores in excess of 200, and there will be games where they would need to defend something around 140.
‘There might be games where you need to score in excess of 200, there might be games where you need to scrap and try and defend 140, on a wicket that’s holding up and it’s tough for batting,” Buttler remarked.
England have hired the former West Indies captain Kieron pollard to get some local knowledge for the course of the tournament, to make it easy of the batters like Phil Salt, Harry Brook or Will Jacks, all of whom are eager to make a mark in the tournament.
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The two-time champions were so happy with the return of their prime pacer Jofra Archer, who made his return in the England colours after a long time, and ended with figures of 2/28 at the Edgbaston. Buttler, who was adjusted the ‘Player-of-the-match’ for the game, feels this was so vital for them going into the competition.
‘I thought Jofra Archer was brilliant. You could see his emotion taking wickets for England again but we need to temper those expectations because he’s not going to be the same straight away,” Jos Buttler observed during the same discussion on Sky Sports.
England will begin their T20 World Cup defense against Scotland on June 04, at the Bridgetown in Barbados.