Buttler bemoans a missed opportunity
Tim Seifert, making his T20 international debut, runs out England batsman David Willey at Wellington’s Westpac Stadium, Northern Districts player Seifert helped Barkisland win the Sykes Cup in 2015 JOS BUTTLER was left to reflect on a squandered opportunity as a missed run out cost England dear against New Zealand.
After losing the first two games of the Trans-Tasman T20 series to Australia, the tourists literally threw away their hopes of getting back to winning ways agains the Black Caps.
Mark Wood was the man responsible for England’s sliding doors moment, hurling the ball wide of the stumps to reprieve home captain Kane Williamson on nought.
Williamson went on to take play the evening’s decisive innings of 72, pouring salt into Wood’s wounds with a handful of big hits at the Durham seamer’s expense.
England gave a decent account of themselves with the bat, Alex Hales racing to 47 and Dawid Malan making a neat 59, but a regular tumble of wickets left them 184-9 at the close of play.
“That’s always the way it goes, a bit of luck for Kane and he goes on to become the player of the match,” he said.
“It would have been nice to take that chance but games are defined by fine margins the whole time.”
With Australia already assured of a place in the final, New Zealand are now firm favourites to join them.
They effectively have two chances to book their spot in Auckland later this month, with one win from their next two games enough to edge out England.
England have several questions to answer as they await their fate, having seen their batting misfire in Hobart and Melbourne followed by a lacklustre bowling performance at the Westpac Stadium.
Wood and Adil Rashid took two wickets apiece but proved far too costly, while there was a lack of consistency across the board.
“They probably got a few too many, we were just off it a little with the ball,” said Buttler.
“We didn’t put enough pressure on them and gave them 10 to 15 runs too many, which was the difference in the game.”