Jos Buttler wants to stay on as skipper, but accepts blame for World Cup horror-show

Buttler’s England slipped to their fourth defeat in five matches at the World Cup in India, suffering a hammering at the hands of Sri Lanka in Bengaluru.

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The England captain didn’t shy away from the reality of his team’s poor attempt at defending their 2019 World Cup title.

“It’s incredibly disappointing, incredibly frustrating,” Buttler said.

“We're not just losing, we're losing by a long way and playing a long way short of our best. So, absolutely, huge disappointment."

The eight-wicket loss to Sri Lanka doesn’t mathematically rule England out of the running for a semi-final spot, but it would take a near-miraculous turnaround for Buttler’s side to make the final four, as he himself admitted.

“It certainly looks that way and that's incredibly disappointing. You get on the plane to come to India and we're in a really good position as a team. Everything looking like it's going to plan and it's just not worked at all.”

England have underperformed with ball, bat and in the field throughout the majority of their campaign, as was said more than once by players ahead of Thursday’s match against Sri Lanka.

Buttler says that there’s no secret ingredient missing, or a magic switch to turn his team’s fortunes around; it’s just a case of underperformance across the board.

“It's never for a lack of effort, it's never for a lack of hard work or preparation,” Buttler said. Look around the room, it's not a lack of talent. A lot are experienced guys who are fantastic cricketers. So absolutely, it's a huge frustration.

“This tournament's gone nowhere near the way we wanted to. It's been a huge disappointment. If there was one golden egg that we were missing, then you'd hope to see that. But there is no secret, I don't think.”

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Buttler’s own tournament has seen him make captaincy mistakes in the field and deliver disappointing returns with the bat.

England’s key middle-order batter has scored just 95 runs across his five trips to the crease, averaging 19 for the tournament – the least of the six specialist batters in the England squad.

And the skipper says that his own form has set the tone.

“There's no one else who can score your own runs or take your own wickets. That comes from the start, from the captain at the front. I've been a long way short of my best.

“As a leader, you want to lead through your own performance and I've not been able to do that.”

Buttler captained England to the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup title last year in Australia. But his time in charge of the ODI team has been disappointing at times, with mixed results since he took over from Eoin Morgan in 2022.

And the 33-year-old admits that, even though he wants to stay on as captain, it's a call that needs to come from above him.

“I think you're always questioning as captain, you know, how you can get the best out of players, how you can get the team moving in the right direction.

“I certainly have a lot of confidence and belief in myself as a leader and captain and first and foremost as a player, but if you're asking if I should still be captaining the team that's a question for the guys above me.”

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England’s white-ball team has been run by Australian Matthew Mott for the last 18 months, with the coach coming under fire in some quarters for the fortunes of the team under his guidance.

But Buttler argues the result don’t come down to the coaches, the environment or a lack of support.

“We've got fantastic support from the coaches within the environment. We get fantastic support from our fans as a country, and we've let them all down.

“It's been a really tough few weeks, incredibly disappointing, as you say, a shock to perform the way we have with the team that we do have.

“I don't think there's any blame elsewhere apart from ourselves. And as captain, you sort of feel that the most.”

This World Cup is likely to bring an end to a special era of English ODI cricket, with very few of the remaining 2019 winners – Buttler, Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood or Adil Rashid – likely to still be in the squad come the next major ICC tournament in the format.

But Buttler says it was right to stick with the old guard for this campaign, and that they weren’t resting on their laurels after that 2019 triumph.

“I think in any sport or anything, you can't protect anything or rely on the past, you have to go and create something new every time. We know that as players, we touch on experience and things, having banked stuff before, but something we spoke about a lot as a team, that you have to go and create it again.

“You can't rest on your laurels or try and protect something, try, and protect an image or protect something as a team. And that's why, the very beginning of the tournament, I said, we weren’t here to try and defend our title. We're here to start something new and try and win something.

“Obviously, we're falling a long way short of that at the minute, but as players we certainly didn't take anything for granted or just think it would be all right on the night. You don't get to the level like this by thinking like that.”

England’s World Cup campaign continues on Sunday against table-topping India, with three further fixtures to follow against Australia, Netherlands and Pakistan.