Matthew Mott insists his leadership partnership with Jos Buttler has been “galvanised” and, given the chance to continue after England’s T20 World Cup mauling by India, believes the team will bounce back “bigger, badder and better”.
Having secured the trophy in Australia back in 2022, both Mott, the head coach, and Buttler, the captain, find themselves under pressure, with a lamentable 50-over World Cup defence in India last winter now followed by a spasmodic T20 campaign that saw only associate teams and West Indies beaten before a gory semi-final exit.
But Mott, understood to have two years left on his contract, believes progress behind the scenes has been made. And so while braced for external criticism – “you guys [in the media] will have your fun at our expense I’m sure,” he said – the Australian hopes the team director, Rob Key, keeps the faith in their pairing.
“Yeah, I definitely do,” replied Mott, when asked if he thought he was still the best man for the job. “I think Jos and I as a partnership we’ve been galvanised in the last six months and you learn more about leadership in times of adversity.
“If you asked around the dressing room, we’ve got a lot of people in the support staff that have given credit to the leadership group for the way we’ve stuck together in tricky circumstances. So sometimes it’s not all about results.
“I think we were good without being great. As a tournament as a whole, given some of the adversity we faced, I was absolutely pumped with Jos’s leadership throughout. I thought he was amazing just to stay so level.”
It may be that with the 50-over Champions Trophy next year, and the next T20 World Cup not until 2026, a line is drawn under some senior players. Moeen Ali, 37, Jonny Bairstow, 34, and Chris Jordan, 35, are clearly approaching the end; possibly even Adil Rashid, 36, despite a personally fine campaign.
Asked if it was time for fresh blood, Mott replied: “We’ve got a pretty good mixture at the moment. You never know. Always after World Cups you have time for reflection. We’ll lick our wounds in the next week or two and then I’m sure we’ll get back planning, we’ve got a series against Australia in September.
“But there’s been no discussions about that. Actually we’ve done well in concentrating exactly on what’s on here and every team we come up against we try and give our full attention. So we’ll take that time to reflect when we get back and then hopefully come back bigger, badder and better.”
Mott and Buttler have received support from one prominent voice back home. Ben Stokes, who missed the tournament to focus on returning to a full all-rounder role in the Test team he captains, believes reaching the semi-final – even though rolled for 103 all out on the day by a mighty India side – still counted as progress.
Stokes said: “Obviously I was gutted, I watched the game and was devastated for them. They got through in a strange way – there was a lot of weather around, but when they were put under pressure, especially towards the back end of the group stages, they showed what a good team they were.
“When you’re under pressure, that’s when good teams come together and show what they’re about. But India are a very, very good team, especially in the conditions that that sort of wicket offered, [that] gave India a huge advantage.
“But I think the way in which Jos and Motty have gone out there, they’ve done a great job. We’d love to have gone all the way, but getting to a semi-final is not an easy thing to be able to do.”
