I WOULD STILL KEEP ONE-DAY WONDER OUT OF TEST SIDE
THEY say timing is everything and that certainly applies to Jos Buttler with the IPL auction later this week. This innings should put another nought on his contract! Jos is a freak. I was at Trent Bridge when he did a demo with Andrew Flintoff and the noise the ball made off the bat and the speed of his hands were remarkable. If I was Australia I would have been saying, “England might be 189-6 here, but this innings is not finished until we get Jos Buttler out”. That’s what makes this England side incredibly dangerous. It was a slow first 50 but Buttler made sure he was still trying to score at a run a ball. He didn’t go into his bunker and he was also helped by Chris Woakes. Jos is a cool, calm, calculating cricketer and he realised with his ability he could catch up later. That innings can be the template for England to win a major competition. After the way he has played there will be the usual clamour for him to come back to the Test side, especially as he probably feels hard done by after two second innings not outs against India. But for now I wouldn’t go down that road. For too long England tried to make Test match players into one-day players. Let’s not make the same mistake the other way round. Let Jos concentrate on white-ball cricket. The criticism of English cricket since the Ashes has been way over the top. It was a bit disrespectful. England at home in Tests are excellent and with the white ball they are superb. These boys are going from strength to strength and many of them are rightly making themselves available for the IPL. In the old days franchises didn’t want England cricketers because they weren’t good enough but that has definitely changed. It can be good for England cricketers to play in front of massive crowds and learn to handle pressure. That is the missing ingredient if they hope to win a major tournament.