Confident Buttler has the shots to be a magnificent seven

England batsman learns the benefit of experience Dashing T20 stroke play now setting Tests alight

England have deployed a specialist batsman at No 7 in their Test side before – but none so dashing as Jos Buttler. “A wild-card pick,” as he described himself, Buttler will raise the bar of run-rates if he combines new-found defence with the full flow of his Twenty20 stroke play.

Without engaging top gear, Buttler took the second Natwest Test away from Pakistan, scoring his unbeaten 80 off 101 balls. He was intent on defence when the second new ball was taken, yet still unleashed breathtaking drives through extra-cover, as well as the straight six which Buttler himself thought the biggest he had hit in his red-ball career.

Strangely enough, England’s previous specialist batsmen at No 7 all came from Nottinghamshire: Dodge Whysall, who died of septicaemia in 1930 within a year of his last Test, Joe Hardstaff Jr and Derek Randall. The opportunity has arisen when England have had an all-rounder, like Ian Botham in Randall’s time, or a wicketkeeperbatsman – or both in the case of Ben Stokes and Jonny Bairstow.

No specialist at No 7, however, has approached scoring at 79 runs per 100 balls for England, as Buttler did at Headingley to win the manof-the-match award, and only the swashbuckling bowler Graeme Swann has come anywhere near with 76 runs per 100 balls.

Buttler’s attitude is summed up by the two words he has inscribed on his bat handles – “F--- it”: the attitude of an old-time amateur who plays Test cricket for fun. A bit like Gilbert Jessop, “the Croucher”, the prototype of a T20 player who scored the fastest century for England in terms of time, 75 minutes, in 1902 when the number of balls faced was not recorded.

“I think it [his two-word motto] is something that reminds me of what my best mindset is when I’m playing cricket – and probably in life as well,” Buttler said. “It puts cricket in perspective. When you nick off, does it really matter? It’s just a good reminder when I’m in the middle, when I’m questioning myself, and it brings me back to a good place.

“Probably if anything my mentality has been quite similar to my first few Tests. Not worrying about external factors, just trying to play the game; trusting myself.

“The big difference is experience. When I was a young player, I didn’t really believe in experience when the older guys told me I would improve or understand things with time. I used to think you could either do it or you can’t, but now I understand how valuable experience is, and maturity, to help you to deal with not only the onfield stuff but what goes on around it. I started to think too much about how to not get out, as opposed to how to score runs.”

Buttler dried up during the Ashes series of 2015, when he kept wicket well but made only 122 runs.

“I learned some valuable stuff there, and got in a bad rut that I just couldn’t get out of. The only real way to get out of it was to be dropped [in the UAE in late 2015]. And actually, being dropped released a lot of pressure.”

Buttler rebuilt his confidence by blasting white balls out of grounds in England, Australia, Bangladesh, the UAE and, most recently, India. “Those couple of weeks in the Indian Premier League gave me huge amounts of confidence, playing in front of crowds, the pressure of being an overseas player. That showed me a lot about where I was at and where I can get to. For me, not trying to worry about the colour of the ball helps.

“In T20 there’s generally another game soon after, so you know you’ve got another opportunity coming up. In T20 you’re almost set up to fail a lot of the time, especially if you’re batting in the middle order. You’re dictated to by how the game is played out, what is deemed a successful knock.

“The tough thing with Test cricket is that if you get out early, you’ve got a long time to think about it. You guys have got to write something, the Sky commentators have got to fill time, and they can pick you to pieces. In T20 you probably just move on – there’s another game two days later.

“In cricket, you fail in your own head maybe seven or eight times out of 10. Even guys who get 50 always feel they should have gone on. But if someone averaged 50 in Test cricket, that’s outstanding. The way cricket works, you’re always dealing with failure, which is a tough game to master mentally.”

Coming into his prime as a batsman at the age of 27, Buttler is gifted enough to combine the best of both by bringing T20 stroke play into Tests.