I’ll be England’s AB, says Buttler

JOS BUTTLER believes he can transform English cricket by becoming the team’s answer to AB De Villiers.

Buttler has the fastest two one-day tons in England history thanks to his 66-ball effort during their 210-run win against New Zealand yesterday, which occupied five more deliveries than his century against Sri Lanka at Lord’s last year.

De Villiers, 31, leads the ICC batting rankings for one-day internationals and is second in the Test table. Buttler is 26th and 49th respectively but, at 24, has the talent to catch up his fellow wicketkeeper-batsman.

“AB De Villiers is someone who has changed batting and everyone is trying to emulate him,” said Buttler. “He has been a role model for me for a long time and that’s the role I want to play.

“I want to be that guy who can go out like I did at Edgbaston and play those kinds of innings consistently. Part of my role as vice-captain is to try to lead this group. The way we went about it breeds a lot of confidence.

“I was looking at the number of caps everyone had. [Captain] Eoin Morgan has the most (142) but then Joe Root (55) and Steve Finn (58) are pretty similar to me (Buttler has 56 caps). The other young guys are the same age as me but they are veryery fresh into international cricket.

“Players like Jason Roy and Sam Billings might have missed out at Edgbastonon but I’m sure we’ll see great displays from them. They will take the confidence fromom the team performance ance into the rest off the series.”

The contrast from England’ss miserable Worldrld Cup effort couldld hardly have been greater as England took a 1-0 lead in the series with the second match at The Kia Oval on Friday.

Where England were timid and ineffective in the tournament, they were bold and powerful at Edgbaston. New Zealand were World Cup finalists and will surely fire again in this series, yet England now know they can make 400 in an innings after yesterday’s record-breaking total of 408. Buttler added:a “We have a licence tot play attacking cri cricket and it is clear t that is what the public want.

“English cricket has ac accepted that we can do it and that is a big c change. If we weren’t going to have a swing at Edgbaston, when the public wanted it… “I’m sure we will have some b big challenges, especi especially in this series agains against a top side who will come b back, keep fighting and pla play aggressively.”