England white-ball skipper Jos Buttler, set to play his first game of competitive cricket after the T20 World Cup semifinal loss to India due to a calf injury sustained in August, has said that he is hungry to play as much as possible and help develop a new limited-overs team for England under head coach Brendon McCullum, who will take over ODI and T20I sides next year. After missing out on months of white-ball action, Buttler is back in Barbados for the first T20I of the five-match series against West Indies.

After England lost the ODI series 1-2 under the leadership of Liam Livingstone, they would be looking to gain a crucial, confidence-boosting series win over the Windies, who have dominated the Three Lions across both white-ball formats as of late.

After a poor 2023 World Cup in India, England has lost both ODI series against WI on their tour to Caribbean and a T20I series as well. All three series have seen England losing in crucial moments despite giving tough competition to the Windies.

Speaking about his return from injury and his future in international cricket, Buttler said “All sorts of things run through your mind. I think you try and work through everything.”

The England skipper also said that he enjoys being the captain of the side and it is something he believes that he can do well.

McCullum, England’s current Test coach, will be taking over the white-ball sides from January 2025 onwards ahead of the ICC Champions Trophy to be held from February-March in Pakistan. This development has given Buttler, under fire for poor performances in 50-over and 20-over World Cup defences, a new lease of life.

The pair have been friends for a long time and McCullum aims to bring the best out of Buttler during his tenure. McCullum’s experience as a white-ball captain for New Zealand in his later stages of the career have inspired Buttler to develop an environment where players can flourish and go to the “top of the mountain”.

“I had some chats with Baz (Brendon) about how this stage of your career can actually be the most rewarding. He spoke about his own experiences as captain in the last few years of when he was playing, it is not about you at all, it is 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 is exactly what I want to get out of them,” said Buttler.

Buttler is a man with a renewed sense of purpose, with a fresh cycle of ICC white-ball tournaments approaching. With the next year’s Champions Trophy, the 2026 T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka and the 2027 50-over World Cup in Africa in his mind, he wants to play “as much as he can” and develop a new generation of white-ball players for England. He also opened up on how time away from the game gave him a new perspective on the game and the desperation, motivation to come back to the field.

“You get a nice perspective of, when cricket has taken away from you (during time spent away from game), how great it is, how important it is and how much you enjoy it. It is all the little things that you sometimes take for granted that you really miss the most, like being around the changing room, pulling the shirt on. When you start to think about it, it gives you a lot of hunger and motivation to get back, put the work in and get playing again,” said Buttler.

“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 is the mindset of however long I have got back.”

“I think throughout the three ODIs [against West Indies], Jacob Bethell scoring his maiden fifty, Dan Mousley [also] in the last game, you see those guys getting that opportunity and grabbing it which is incredibly exciting. And whatever that means in terms of squads, that is exciting for English cricket,” he concluded.

England Squad for the T20Is: Philip Salt(w), Jos Buttler(c), Will Jacks, Liam Livingstone, Jacob Bethell, Dan Mousley, Sam Curran, Jamie Overton, Adil Rashid, Jofra Archer, Reece Topley, Saqib Mahmood, Jordan Cox, John Turner, Rehan Ahmed, Jafer Chohan, Michael-Kyle Pepper

West Indies Squad for the T20Is: Brandon King, Evin Lewis, Nicholas Pooran(w), Rovman Powell(c), Sherfane Rutherford, Roston Chase, Andre Russell, Akeal Hosein, Gudakesh Motie, Matthew Forde, Shamar Joseph, Terrance Hinds, Romario Shepherd, Shai Hope, Shimron Hetmyer.

Brendon McCullum, England’s head coach, accepted his team’s “missed opportunity” after Pakistan sealed a 2-1 series victory with decisive spin-friendly tactics in Multan and Rawalpindi. McCullum remained magnanimous but acknowledged that his side, despite a historic 800-plus first-innings total in the opener, faltered as Pakistan overhauled their lineup and capitalized on turn-heavy pitches. Following a ruthless innings win on Multan’s flat deck, Pakistan, with a refreshed selection panel, introduced spinning surfaces that saw Sajid Khan and Noman Ali share 39 out of 40 English wickets.

Their bowling transformed the series, dismantling England for just 814 runs across four innings, turning the tide sharply in Pakistan’s favour.

“Credit to Pakistan, the way that those two spinners bowled was superb,” McCullum told Sky Sports. “I thought they varied the pace beautifully. Noman from one end, taking pace off most of the time with the occasional fast one, and Sajid flipping that around and putting pace on with the occasional slow one. I thought was great partnership bowling. And our guys weren’t able to sustain the pressure, unfortunately.”

“When teams come to England, ideally we play on the surfaces that we’re more accustomed to, which allow our strengths to really flourish and maybe paper over some of the weaknesses as well, which every team naturally has,” said McCullum.

England’s batting struggles, notably those of Ollie Pope, Zak Crawley, and Harry Brook, revealed a lack of adaptability under pressure. Brook, after shining in the first Test, faltered with a high score of 26 in the last four innings.

“I’m a little bit surprised it’s taken Pakistan as long as it has. Because when you go to Sri Lanka, India, and Bangladesh, the ball is always going to turn. What we had here a couple of years ago, or in that first Test match, where it was pretty flat, was a different challenge. It’ll be interesting to see over the next couple of years whether they persist with these types of surfaces, but certainly, there are no excuses from our point of view. We had our chances, and we ran second,” the England head coach said.

McCullum defended England’s batting unit as the best they’ve assembled but admitted that adaptation was lacking as Pakistan played on their strengths. He also pointed to England’s spinners, Shoaib Bashir and Jack Leach, who couldn’t replicate the Pakistani spinners’ success despite similar conditions.

“It’s pretty much the same batting group that came here two years ago and were outstanding in these conditions, and it’s the same batting group that put on 800 in the first Test match,” McCullum said. “As the conditions changed, we were presented with different challenges and we weren’t quite able to adapt to those challenges. And that’s a missed opportunity.

“I have no doubt, and the skipper has no doubt, that the batting group that we’ve now had together for the best part of 18 months is the best that we’ve got,” he added. “We’re very confident, we’ve just got to make sure we keep allowing guys to develop them and keep becoming the players that they want to become and will benefit from that,” he added.

Reflecting on the lessons learned, the former New Zealand batter added, “You’re always trying to improve, but you’ve got to be really careful that you’re not seeking perfection because it doesn’t exist in an inconsistent game. The game we play is going to come with periods where it’s not going how you want it to, but you’ve still got to hold firm.

“We will be confronted with spinning conditions at some stage in the future, and we hope that some of the lessons, good and bad that we’ve had throughout this series, will give us a bit more of a base to be able to be successful,” he said.

The record of the most balls faced without scoring a single run in Tests is held by former New Zealand pacer Geoff Allott, who did not score a run despite facing 77 balls. That innings, against South Africa in Auckland in 2006, also holds the record of the least runs scored per minute in Test history, with Allott having batted 101 minutes. However, both of these records would seem paltry to what father-son duo Ian and Thomas Bestwick put up in a valiant display of old school first-class cricket – the art of defensive batting.

Father Ian and son Thomas, playing for Darley Abbey Cricket Club’s 4th XI in the Division Nine Derbyshire Cricket League, made just four runs despite facing a combined 208 balls, in a gritty attempt to save a match against Mickleover 3rd XI.

Opening the batting, 48-year-old Ian faced 137 balls but did not score a run. Thomas, on the other hand, faced 71 deliveries, scoring just four runs. In fact, the team ended on a total of 21 runs in their 45 overs, with extras being the top run-getter (9).

In stark contrast to the brand of cricket brought into fashion by Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes at the international level, the Bestwicks decided to follow the old-fashioned route.

After clinching a draw in the game, Ian Bestwick admitted that his name had become quite popular across social media.

“It’s gone round the world,” he told BBC Radio Derby after the match. “It has been mentioned in Australia, Pakistan, Qatar. I have had friend requests from around the globe,” he added.

Ian mentioned that it grew into a fun challenge to not score a run towards the end of the innings.

“Our dressing room was bouncing. [The players] were all grinning, and thought it was brilliant. The atmosphere in our dressing room was second to none. It was brilliant. Towards the end, it became a thing where I was determined not to score,” he said.

Much like English football, England’s cricket structure also goes down to several lower divisions, with varying brands of cricket.

Indian team players react after win over England in Ranchi Test.© ANI