BUTTLER NEEDS A SERVICE BREAK
Brief visit to India ‘best move’ for Jos says Silverwood
LEAVING Sri Lanka with a 2-0 win safely tucked away, England coach Chris Silverwood claimed he was “perfectly happy” to lose one of his best players for three Test matches in India.
Whether his body language and tone of voice betrayed him was a little difficult to tell on a Zoom call across 5,000 miles.
But it was hard to escape the fact that the praise he heaped on Jos Buttler’s efforts with both bat and gloves flew completely in the face of the decision to play him in just one Test in India.
Bio-secure environments in Covid times make the need for ‘downtime’ away from bubbles a must. But it is entirely fair to wonder why a man into whom the ECB have poured so much time and effort to make a matchwinning Test cricketer is removed from that form of the game when he starts winning matches.
And why must it be the biggest event of the winter Buttler sits out from, rather than the white-ball leg of the India tour, the ill-fated white-ball tour of South Africa or one of the two IPLs he will play in?
“What can you say?” said Silverwood, above. “We’ve decided to rest and rotate. We need to look after the players.
“So I’d just ask people to understand why we do what we do, we’re resting in the best interests of that player and equally to get the best out of them long term. I’m perfectly happy we’re being proactive and factoring in breaks.”
Of course, white-ball captain Eoin Morgan might argue for the T20 series against India to sit a little higher in England’s priorities in a T20 World Cup year.
But as one of the greatest T20 cricketers the game has seen, Buttler’s contributions in October are not going to change based on missing a few matches in March.
Buttler has had to work incredibly hard to get to this point in Tests, averaging nearly 55 in his past eight matches, five
of them wins, while wicket faultlessly.
He will win his 50th Test cap in Chennai, but the battle over when he plays – and for which side – looks set to continue in this busiest of years.
At least Silverwood has shown himself to be a shrewd manager of the talent he does have, with four Test series wins out of five since replacing Trevor Bayliss.
He was without Jofra Archer for most of the South Africa tour and without Ben Stokes for most of the Pakistan series – and he missed them both in Sri Lanka.
All ended in victory for an ex-international who just might be a better coach than player.
He said: “I’m loving every minute of what is the dream job.”
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