As No 1 Test side, India were going to bounce back: Buttler
NOTTINGHAM: England vice-captain Jos Buttler acknowledged India’s brilliant comeback despite being 0-2 down to hold the winning edge in the Trent Bridge Test with three days left and owned up the home team’s continued shaky batting performances.
It took Buttler’s aggressive batting honed in limited-overs cricket to pull England to 161, finishing on a top-score of 39, but he admitted that the collapse has left the hosts facing defeat with three days left.
Buttler was roped into the Test side for his impressive showing in Indian Premier League (IPL) 2018. He hit three fours and two sixes in the end after India, led by Hardik Pandya’s 5/28, had reduced them to 128/9. The visitors led by 292 runs overall going into Monday’s third day.
“It’s very disappointing, after a really good start to the day, picking up those early wickets and
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Any professional sportsman takes pride in playing for their country and we’ll turn up and we’ll be fighting hard. JOS BUTTLER, On fighting back
being 50 for none. We let that slip,” he said, after England pacers had taken quick wickets to end India’s first innings at 329.
“We know in England conditions can be tough, favourable for swing bowling. Credit to India, they bowled well and got the ball moving around, and we weren’t good enough to deal with that.
“I’m not sure India were ever going to go anywhere. They’re the No 1-ranked side in the world and they’re there for a reason. It was always going to be a competitive series. Just because they were 2-0 down I don’t think we could have taken anything lightly.
“We probably didn’t quite hit our straps as well as we would have liked the first morning with the ball as well. Winning the toss brings pressure to take wickets and we didn’t execute as well.”
But England faced criticism after another batting collapse. Their top-order batsmen have struggled and openers Alastair Cook and Keaton Jennings have not got a fifty.
“No one’s going to give up, or throw the towel in,” he said. “We’ll be fighting hard. We’ve played some fantastic cricket throughout this series – we’re 2-0 up. We’ve had a poor day, but we’ll dust ourselves down and come back hard.”
He said England batsmen need to find a way out of the slump. In four innings in this series, the hosts have crossed 300 only once, that too thanks to No 7 Chris Woakes’ century (137 not out) at Lord’s that lifted them from 130/5.
“It comes down to the guys working hard, being disciplined, practice, all of the above. It’s hard, it’s not easy. It takes a lot of character for us to come back from tough situations like this.”