{"id":448647,"date":"2026-02-27T14:49:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/448647\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T14:49:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:49:11","slug":"hes-doing-all-he-can-england-back-buttler-to-end-miserable-run-of-form-england-cricket-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/448647\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018He\u2019s doing all he can\u2019: England back Buttler to end miserable run of form | England cricket team"},"content":{"rendered":"

England have not committed to fielding their strongest side in Friday\u2019s do-not-necessarily-have-to-win T20 World Cup<\/a> encounter with New \u00adZealand but Jos Buttler will be given the chance to turn around his \u00admiserable run of form, with the team\u2019s coaching staff convinced that a return to familiar lofty standards is\u00a0imminent.<\/p>\n

After six games at the tournament, Buttler\u2019s top score is 26, against Nepal in England\u2019s opener, and in their past four matches he has contributed three, three, seven and two. It is his worst run in international T20s since he followed 13 in his first ever innings with five successive single-digit scores, between February and September 2012.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve played a lot against Jos, he\u2019s one of the most dangerous white-ball batters to play the game,\u201d said Tim Southee, England\u2019s bowling coach. \u201cWhen you\u2019re that good and you have a bit of a blip, I guess you feel a bit more pressure. But he\u2019s hitting it as well as he [ever] has in the nets. I\u2019m sure he\u2019s only a couple of good strikes away from another amazing innings. He\u2019s doing his business, doing all he can to perform.\u201d<\/p>\n

England have not yet named their team for Friday\u2019s game, with Southee saying only that they would \u201clook at conditions and pick what team they think is best suited to match up against New Zealand on that surface\u201d, but he confirmed that \u00adButtler would be selected. \u201cHe\u2019s such a \u00addangerous\u00a0player,\u201d Southee said. \u201cAny time you see his name on the team sheet it\u2019s a concern for opposition bowlers.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Thursday the England bowler Mark Wood told Buttler to believe in himself. Drafted in to cover for \u00adButtler on the former white-ball captain\u2019s podcast For the Love of Cricket<\/a>, Wood said: \u201cI\u2019m sure he\u2019s been through things like this before, and he can just call on those experiences. I\u2019m sure it\u2019ll come good. As a fan everybody wants everyone to hit a hundred every time, but cricket doesn\u2019t work like that. He might have had a couple of low scores but he\u2019s that good his class will eventually come through. If I had any advice for Jos it would be to keep believing in yourself as much as we all believe in you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile Rob Walter, the New Zealand head coach, said they, too, were braced for a Buttler revival. \u201cI don\u2019t think you\u2019d ever doubt the \u00adquality of Jos Buttler<\/a>,\u201d he said. \u201cWe know that all batters probably find a space in their career somewhere where there is a lull, and sometimes it only takes one knock for that to change. No one will ever doubt his quality, and so we won\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark Wood has backed Jos Buttler. \u2018I\u2019m sure he\u2019s been through things like this before, and he can just call on those experiences. I\u2019m sure it\u2019ll come good,\u2019 Wood said. Photograph: Robbie Stephenson\/PA<\/p>\n

Buttler is the only member of \u00adEngland\u2019s top seven not to have scored more than 40 at least once at the World Cup, but with several batters in search of peak form there should be no lack of motivation, even\u00a0with a place in the final four already secured. They may be no longer in need of points but \u00adEngland remain very much in pursuit of \u00adperfection, or something vaguely reminiscent of it.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, New Zealand need a win to secure their own place in the final four and both teams know that whoever prevails will top their group and in so doing almost certainly avoid South Africa, who have established themselves as the tournament\u2019s form side after victory over India was \u00adfollowed by a crushing win against West Indies on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Quick GuidePossible teams for FridayShow<\/p>\n

New Zealand: Tim Seifert (WK), Finn Allen, Rachin Ravindra, Glenn Phillips, Daryl Mitchell, Mark Chapman, Mitchell Santner (c), Cole McConchie, Matt Henry, Ish Sodhi, Lockie Ferguson.
England: Phil Salt, Jos Buttler (WK), Harry Brook (c), Jacob Bethell, Tom Banton, Sam Curran, Will Jacks, Rehan Ahmed, Liam Dawson, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid.<\/p>\n

Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n

One source of encouragement for England\u2019s batters is New Zealand\u2019s lack of a cutting edge in the tournament. The Kiwis have taken only 27 wickets<\/a>, just over half the 51 taken by England, who have played one game more. As a result batters have a much higher average when playing New Zealand than the World Cup\u2019s other leading teams: every other side in the Super 8s is also among the eight against whom \u00adbatters at the World Cup have the lowest \u00adaverages, while New Zealand are 15th in those \u00adrankings<\/a>. Against England the \u00adaverage batter has scored 18.11, against the Black Caps 28.62 \u2013 and at almost identical strike rates.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn some of those matches where we didn\u2019t take a full set of 10 wickets we still won the game,\u201d Walter said. \u201cSo we still managed to restrict them. In T20 cricket, sometimes restriction is as valuable as wickets. From our point of view taking wickets is just the end process of executing a skill. For us it\u2019s responding to the conditions, understanding what we need to do as a bowling unit and then collectively doing it. And whether that has a team seven down or all out or two down, if we win the game it\u2019s irrelevant.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England have not committed to fielding their strongest side in Friday\u2019s do-not-necessarily-have-to-win T20 World Cup encounter with New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-448647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}