3 minute read

“Room for improvement” has become such a desirable attribute among England players that a “high ceiling” now feels like almost a mandatory requirement for selection. It’s instructive then to remember how England’s greatest ever white ball batter, Jos Buttler, came into the national side with almost zero headroom.

If you tend to tune out from selection explanations and don’t know what we’re talking about here, players with “a high ceiling” are adequate cricketers who, for one reason or another, are thought to have more room for improvement than similarly skilled alternatives.

Shoaib Bashir is one recent example. Josh Hull is another. These guys are picked not so much for what they are now, but for what they could become.

Jos Buttler though? How much has he improved since he first came into the England team? Not very much at all, we’d say. He’s changed roles a little, gone up the order, taken on a fair bit more responsibility. But has he actually become any better? Probably a bit. He became more consistent – although that was probably as much to do with the fact he almost exclusively batted at ‘the death’ in the early part of his career.

When Buttler first came into the one-day team, we described the selection decision as being, “like fancying a pint and having to choose between two doorways: one is open and leads to your favourite pub; the other is bricked-up and you suspect the building used to be an abbattoir.”

At this point he was averaging 70.57 in one-day cricket, scoring at 128 runs per 100 balls. England had also sent him on a five-match Lions tour, just to be certain. He scored 102 off 56 balls, 40 off 34 balls, 119 off 130 balls, 1 off 3 balls and 64 off 31 balls.

They had to pick him. In his seventh ODI innings, he made 47 off 16 balls. A year after that, he had his first hundred (and a 99) even though he’d been batting almost exclusively at number seven.

The stats from this period aren’t incredible, but this is largely because of what he was being asked to do. When a batter needs to score most quickly, their dismissal is unavoidably more likely, but the whole point of Jos Buttler is that he was always less affected by this than anyone else.

The T20 format is awash with chancy sloggers who live off the glory of the rare days when their modus operandi comes off, but right from the start Buttler stood out for his ability to serve up surprisingly reliable irresponsible batting.

At this point, all we really want from Buttler is for him to remain as claustrophobically close to his ceiling as he has generally always been. In his first match back after injury, Phil Salt – the man who has replaced him both behind the stumps and at the top of the order for this T20 series against the West Indies – made an unbeaten 103 off 54 balls and Buttler made a golden duck.

Quite the contrast. But then here’s another one: in the second game it was Salt’s turn to get out first ball. Buttler duly stepped in to score 83 off 45 balls.

It was all nicely familiar. You’ll be able to envision the wrist-snap boundaries without even seeing them and there was also that ramp shot he’s played brilliantly since forever. (Back in 2013, we said he often seemed unaware the pitch had sides with his tendency to forge a two-spoked wagon wheel behind bowler and wicketkeeper.)

There was also a colossal six off Gudakesh Motie.

Has he ever hit a bigger one? “Probably not actually.”

So there’s something new.

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