Jos Buttler had a dream start to captaincy winning the 2022 T20 World Cup in his first ICC event as skipper, but the highs of captaincy came crashing down at the 50-over World Cup in India in 2023, where England finished seventh, winning just three of their nine games.
Failure to defend the 50-over World Cup title was followed by another poor showing at the T20 World Cup earlier this year where, despite sneaking into the semis, the Three Lions were far from their best. Their humiliation by eventual champions India painted a pretty good picture of their campaign, overall.
Head coach Matthew Mott ‘resigned’ after the debacle, but England opted to retain their skipper, Jos Buttler. And now, a few months on, Buttler has admitted that, at one point, he feared he might be sacked as captain. "I thought it was a possibility, absolutely," Buttler said of getting sacked.
"At that point in time after the T20 World Cup, I'm sure Rob Key did a real in-depth look at everything to do with the white-ball set-up.”
The 34-year-old revealed that he was then pleased to get reassurance from Rob Key, the team's managing director, that he is being retained as skipper because he is ‘the right man’ to take the team forward.
"I had some good conversations with Keysy and I said I didn't want to be doing it because I'm the only person to do it, I want to be doing it because I'm the right person to do it,” Buttler revealed.
“He believed I could lead the team forward and captain into the future and take the team into a good place."
It’s been a tough year regardless for Buttler, not least because he’s spent a chunk of the year on the sidelines, recovering from injury. Buttler hasn’t played any professional cricket since the T20 World Cup, plagued by a calf injury that took longer than expected to heal.
He said that the long injury layoff has made him realise how much he actually enjoys being on the field, doing what he loves – which is playing cricket.
"When you get an injury like that, it makes you realise how desperately you want to get back and the stuff that you really enjoy doing, so that's the mindset of however long I've got back," he said.
Going forward, Buttler will, of course, be working with Brendon McCullum, who has also taken over white-ball coaching duty till the end of the 2027 ODI World Cup. The 34-year-old revealed that he’s already had some really fruitful chats with ‘Baz’, who gave him sound advice about how the late 30s can actually turn out to be the most ‘rewarding’ part of a player’s career.
"I had some chats with Baz about how this stage of your career can actually be the most rewarding," Buttler said.
"He spoke about his own experiences as captain in the last few years of when he was playing, it's not about you at all, it's about creating that environment and letting people flourish and how seeing them go to the top of the mountain was some of the happiest times of his career as a player. And that's exactly what I want to get out of them."
The T20I series against West Indies will see Buttler return as player and captain for the first time since June. The five-match series starts on November 9 (Saturday) at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados.
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