Jos Buttler feared he could be sacked as England captain after their T20 World Cup exit in June, but hopes that Brendon McCullum’s appointment as white-ball head coach will lead to the most “rewarding” time in his career.
Buttler is back leading England after a four-month absence due to a recurring calf injury. Since his last match, the T20 World Cup semi-final defeat by India, Matthew Mott has been fired and McCullum appointed in his stead.
England won the 2022 T20 World Cup under the guidance of Mott and Buttler, but then performed poorly in the one-day international World Cup the following year and in the 2024 T20 World Cup when they won only three matches out of 12 against Test opponents.
“I thought it was a possibility, absolutely,” Buttler said of whether he thought his time as captain was over. “In 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.
“It’s always disappointing when somebody loses their job, as a captain you feel a responsibility for that with Matthew Mott. That’s obviously frustrating but 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. He believed I could lead the team forward and captain into the future and take the team into a good place.”
Regarding whether he ever considered stepping down, Buttler added: “All sorts of things run through your mind, I think you try and work through everything, and sort of, where am I at – my career, in my batting, in my captaincy, and what I want to do.
“ It’s something I’ve really enjoyed the honour of doing and something I believe I can do well. When you really come down to it and think about the decision you’re going to make, it actually becomes very clear that now you’re determined to do it and keep going.”
An excellent cricketer but terrible poker player, from the outside Buttler appeared to be wearing the captaincy heavily, with McCullum saying that his main job as head coach would be to cheer up the “miserable” 34-year-old.
“It’s obviously something I need to work on,” joked Buttler. “I’m really excited about him taking over in white-ball cricket. You can see the effect he’s had on the Test team and the whole narrative around English cricket. He was always someone I’d have loved to play in a team with and now there’s an amazing opportunity to work with him as a coach.”
West Indies have drafted in a number of their star players including Akeal Hosein, Shimron Hetmyer, Nicholas Pooran, and Andre Russell for the first two T20s of their five-match series against England.
The quartet all missed the recent trip to Sri Lanka for personal reasons and only Hetmyer featured in the Windies' recent 2-1 ODI series victory over England. But all four have been recalled to Darren Sammy's 15-man squad for the weekend double-header against Jos Buttler's side in Barbados.
Alzarri Joseph is absent due to a two-match ban imposed by Cricket West Indies for his spat with captain Shai Hope during the series-sealing win over England at the Kensington Oval on Wednesday. Matthew Forde, named player of the ODI series, replaces Joseph for the first two games of the series.
West Indies squad*: Rovman Powell (c), Roston Chase, Matthew Forde, Shimron Hetmyer, Terrance Hinds, Shai Hope, Akeal Hosein, Shamar Joseph, Brandon King, Evin Lewis, Gudakesh Motie, Nicholas Pooran, Andre Russell, Sherfane Rutherford, Romario Shepherd.
*First two games of series only
England T20 squad: Jos Buttler (c), Rehan Ahmed, Jofra Archer, Jacob Bethell, Jafer Chohan, Jordan Cox, Sam Curran, Will Jacks, Liam Livingstone, Saqib Mahmood, Dan Mousley, Jamie Overton, Michael Pepper, Adil Rashid, Phil Salt, Reece Topley, John Turner.
Arguably England’s greatest ever white-ball batter, Buttler’s legacy is already cemented as a multiple World Cup winner, but he says that conversations with McCullum have reinvigorated his desire to keep playing for as long as he can.
“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.”
England’s five-match Twenty20 series against West Indies starts on Saturday with the first two matches held in Barbados, before the tour moves on to St Lucia for the final three games.
