Jonathan Agnew on Jos Buttler’s future as England captain
The speed is great, but it has to be as accurate as Azmatullah Omarzai shows. He is not clear, and largely without all the skills, but he runs hard, is accurate and able to get into his field – England strives to do that.
Despite their pick of the best players in this game, Butler and coach Brendon McCullum put all the eggs into the pace basket – picking Archer and Mark Wood in the game and swapping Jamie Overton for Brydon Carse in the second game – and never looked like an attack.
Add to England, with only four front-line bowling selected, making up for the numbers with Joe Root and Liam Livingstone, which is obvious, and it’s obvious.
You need to do five suitable bowling in the ODI, so management has to take some responsibility for it, but we are back in England cricket again and don’t take 50 cricket seriously.
All of these problems – the failure to place the platform while hitting the ball, and the inability to keep pace with the ball – is because the player is not used to playing formats.
The next generation is not playing because domestic games (one-day cup) have been relegated and when summer comes you can bet that many key players will play against the West Indies in May, June and September as they will be wrapped in cotton wool in ashes.
Unless this change, I don’t think we’re surprised by these results.
As for Brooke, he has a poor start to 2025, averaging 16.90 in 10 games in 50 and 20 cricket, but we know he can play.
There aren’t many options to replace Buttler, but Brook seems to be the most believable. He has done it before, and in five games against Australia last September, it would at least make him consider the captain on the court.
We don’t know he might be a captain, but the captain close to the camp’s height statement about his cricket brain. That is, this England group always works hard to know.
Ultimately, it can only be shown by results and performances, but if Brooke does take over him, he will get a good till 2027.
Buttler still has years to do as a player. He can still leave his mark.
