BUTT KICKED
Jos’s reign as white-ball skipper begins with a golden duck and a crushing 50-run defeat against ruthless India
THE Jos Buttler white-ball era began with a whimper as India utterly outclassed England’s T20 kings with a ruthless display.
With his friend and former skipper Eoin Morgan as close to the action as he could possibly be, in the Sky Cricket pod on the boundary, all eyes were on the new man in charge.
But rather than perform like the rockstar he so often is, the new captain was cleaned up for a golden duck by the brilliant Bhuvneshwar Kumar as his side fell well short of their target to be thrashed by 50 runs.
“We’ve been outplayed,” said Buttler. “India bowled fantastically well and we couldn’t get back in the game from that point. We needed to hit it in the stands to stop it swinging.” India set an imposing 199 and then their new-ball bowlers were irresistible as England were bowled out for 148 in 19.3 overs.
Hopes of some Buttler fireworks to kick start his reign were dashed when Kumar’s inswinger cannoned into the stumps to get India going before all-rounder Hardik Pandya (right) blew the rest of the top order away, on a great night for him where his 4-23 and 51 with the bat shone brightest.
He got Dawid Malan to chop on to his stumps for 21 before he captured the two big wickets of Liam Livingstone and Jason Roy, arguably the two hardest hitters in the English game.
Amazingly, with England’s Test cricketers playing largely like T20 cricketers lately, Roy paid his own tribute to the traditional red-ball format with four from 16 balls. A reverse Bazball if you will.
At 33-4 and with a required run rate heading north of 13 per over, it was down to Harry Brook and Moeen Ali to try and conjure up some middle order magic. Both men were dropped, but they managed to add 61 before Brook was smartly caught in the deep for 28. Moeen followed soon after for 36 as India reminded everyone just how strong their depth of talent is, especially in the shortest format.
It might have been considered a minor surprise when Rohit Sharma chose to bat after winning the toss, but India know how to put a score on the board and defend it with the captain setting the tone.
Rohit’s cameo of 24 from 14 balls didn’t last particularly long, but it was long enough for his players to get the message.
England bowlers Sam Curran, Reece Topley and Tymal Mills were all expensive before the trend continued with leg spinner Matt Parkinson.
With Adil Rashid on the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, this series is a chance for Parkinson, but he was punished for bowling too full and too wide.
The only bowler that put on any kind of brakes was Chris Jordan who grabbed 2-23 and again overtook Rashid as the most successful England T20 bowler with 82 scalps.