Jos silences critics with a stumping
Late in Sri Lanka’s second innings, angelo Mathews advanced at Dom Bess, missed the ball, and was relieved when Jos Buttler allowed a tough stumping opportunity to scuttle between his pads for four byes.
Quick as a flash, the tV camera honed in on the england dressing room and located Ben Foakes, the reserve wicketkeeper who starred on this ground on his test debut in 2018, when he scored a century and sparkled with the gloves.
the implication was clear: Foakes would have gobbled up the chance in his sleep. But it was also unfair. that half-blemish aside, Buttler has never kept better in a test, and certainly not in conditions that feel like Mars to a keeper reared on seam and swing.
Seven overs later, Jack Leach beat Dilruwan Perera outside off stump. Buttler half-appealed for a catch while, at the second attempt, dislodging the bails. tV umpire Lyndon Hannibal took an age to decide, but no part of Perera’s boot was behind the line. and so, in his 48th test — though only his 28th as wicketkeeper — Buttler (left) had his first stumping. It was a very english kind of statistic, and a belated feather in his navy blue cap. Buttler’s best moment came on the third evening, again off his good friend Leach, when he reached high to his right to grab a Kusal Mendis edge. It was the kind of chance he fluffed during last summer’s series against Pakistan, when he wondered whether his test career was about to pass him by. and it was the kind of melt-in-thegloves take that would have had the purists purring had the keeper been Foakes.
‘He kept really well,’ said Leach. ‘He’s done brilliantly. I didn’t have much to do with that stumping. It was quick work from him, and nice to have a couple of wickets where we’ve teamed up.’
the only other occasion Buttler had the test gloves in asia proved his undoing. exhausted and demoralised after the second test against Pakistan in Dubai in October 2015, he was dropped — a decision that felt mutually beneficial.
Between that game and england’s tour of New Zealand a year ago, he kept only once in a test — against India at Southampton in 2018, when Jonny Bairstow was a reluctant specialist batsman due to a hairline finger fracture.
Otherwise, Buttler has had to plough his furrow as a batsman, breaking through with a matchwinning 75 against Pakistan at Old trafford in august, followed by a career-best 152 at the ageas Bowl.
But, just as english batsmen can’t be said to be complete unless they have scored runs on asian dustbowls, so too do english keepers need to prove their mettle.
Buttler spoke before the first test about admiring Foakes in practice and seems to have absorbed some of his skills, as if by osmosis. Foakes is expected to get a chance in India next month, as part of england’s rest-and-rotation policy in this busiest of years.
It won’t take much — a smart stumping here, a fifty there — for his advocates to champion his cause. While Buttler has the backing of Joe Root, whatever credit he can bank now will stop the discussion becoming a full-blown debate. this has been a tidy start.