Mediaboss Marketing

Jos Buttler: I want to be someone who wins games of cricket for England, thats my main driving force. Photograph: Gareth Copley/Getty Images

The Barabati stadium in Cuttack is a pleasantly rambling cricket ground, with a lovely green oval pegged out in a clearing at the centre of its jumble of stickle-brick stands. For Englands cricketers the second oneday international on Thursday on a ground in east India none of the squad have previously played at represents a chance to level the series and keep alive the hope of a first bilateral series win in India for 33 years.

Or, failing that, to concede the series in just four days and find their thoughts turning already to the Caribbean in spring and the promise of a home tournament summer. It is a jumping-off point Jos Buttler, speaking in his own disarmingly soft tones in the frenzied air of the Barabatis press conference room the voice of a very gentle and considerate professional contract killer seems likely to relish.

Its a really enjoyable challenge and its brilliant for us that straightaway its a knockout match, looking ahead to the tournament coming up in the summer. Its fantastic to be under that pressure, Buttler said.

Which is certainly one way of looking at the disappointment of Pune, where England were hauled in by one of the great fifthwicket partnerships, and one of the great players in the irrepressible Virat Kohli. Planet Kohli was the headline in one of the Indian newspapers, Kohlis imperious visage pictured peering down magisterially between a blizzard of jawdropping stats.

England trained under the yellowy floodlights with the usual sense of purpose on Wednesday night. It is a huge challenge for this team of adrenal batsmen and a slightly work-in-progress attack to reassert itself from one down in the series. Not least when they will face a home team whose chief superstar looks, right now, like a man having an almost indecent amount of fun while also producing some astonishingly sustained white-ball batting for the ages.

Talk in the buildup that England might try to bounce Kohli got short shrift from KLRahul during a break in training (Good luck, was the instant reply). But given their record of two wins in their past 19 ODIs in India, not to mention the home teams fortress-like record in Cuttack, England will have to do something different to keep this series going to Kolkata. But then this is in so many ways a different England team.

The last time they played here in November 2008 the captain, Kevin Pietersen, scored a relatively restrained hundred two months before he was sacked (for the first time) for undermining the hierarchy (for the first time). Alastair Cook opened the batting. A distinctly Old England score of 270 for four was hunted down with six overs to spare by the gunslinger Virender Sehwag and the immovable eminence Sachin Tendulkar.

Eight years on England have finally stopped being England, or at least being that England. In Buttler, arguably Englands best ever ODI batsman, they have a player India will be genuinely wary of even with the whip hand in the series.

I want to be someone who wins games of cricket for England, thats my main driving force, Buttler said. Its a real motivation to stand up and take responsibility. I want to do it more and more.

He already does it a fair bit. When Buttler makes runs they are generally decisive. England have won 70% of ODIs where their most murderous floating lower-middle-order finisher has scored 60 or more. Buttler has such a cold, wonderfully pure kind of violence in those fast-twitch hands he can change a game in a matter of overs.

It is a quality of inventive acceleration Eoin Morgan first brought to this team and Buttler was quick to offer some solid support for his captain, who was also the future once, and who really could do with a decent score after two fifties in his past 17 innings, but who does still have a mighty record in this form of the game.

Asked what his captain brings Buttler referred to Morgans vision for the game. He said: Hes a fantastic leader in that sense. He really champions people playing in the way they believe and he shows that in the way he plays too and has done for many years. He was one of the first revolutionary players for England and that carries a lot of weight in the group.

For now England will be happy to bat first again on a friendly pitch given their strength in piling on intimidating scores. The likely presence of some dew may come into the picture in another day-night game. Buttler is adamant England will continue to play with freedom, albeit with the intention this time to make genuinely match-seizing individual scores.

Last time out Englands bowlers restricted India to 356 for seven off 48.1 overs on a good pitch with a freakish 65-ball hundred chucked in; a pretty decent effort. Defeat was the batsmens fault, if it has to be anyones. All of us in the top six want to stand up and make hundreds, Buttler said. With England set for a defacto knockout game, there could not be a better moment.

Read this article:
Jos Buttler welcomes knockout pressure while England ponder plan for Kohli - The Guardian