Happy Jos Buttler, happy England team

The natures of England’s white and red ball captains, Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler, could not have been more different. Stokes swaggers with an aura, like a man who owns every inch of real estate he walks on; Buttler is softly-spoken, punishingly introspective, prone to self-doubting, and in the eyes of coach Brendon McCullum, a “touch miserable”. To “cheer up Buttler”, McCullum has stressed before his maiden assignment in charge of England’s stuttering white-ball ship, is his foremost task. In this equation—country’s most influential limited-overs batsman plus their most dynamic coach—England believe they have conceived the magic formula to rediscover white-ball joys. The Matthew Motts era was joyless—even the 2022 triumph was achieved with functionality rather than flamboyance. But the Buttler-McCullum union—a marriage of two like-minded cricketers that many reckon should have solemnised earlier—could make England the most exciting team to watch in ODIs and T20s. “We are desperate for us to play a really watchable brand of cricket,” McCullum emphasised in the press conference.
Typically, he didn’t dwell on producing results, series wins or trophies. Rather, the key words were “vibes”, “environment”, and “positivity”. That is the essence of the McCullum brand of coaching, fostering a team environment wherein everyone is happy, about themselves and those around them, so that they could maximise their talents, play uninhibitedly, without fear or doubts. Bazball, at its core thus, is not an expression of aggression, but a state of mind. As Stokes once reflected: “He is all about making everyone feel, in his words, 10 feet tall.”
The interpretations have been several but McCullum himself has briefly explained the crux of his coaching ideals: “I always felt when playing that everything was based around cricket and sometimes you forgot to enjoy yourself. We want an environment where you want to turn up to work, have a good time, be the best version of yourself, push the boundaries of what you’re capable of. That’s our focus.”
The challenging of conventions—batting at five runs an over in Test cricket, hitting the first ball for a four, reverse-scooping when the ball is still new—seemed accidental products of individual expression at its fullest. Rather than a forced act of self-convincing.
Now, England’s white-ball world needs the Bazball-touché. Since the end of the Eoin Morgan era, England have struggled on both fronts—results, the T20 triumph aside, as well as the approach. The playing style has been genuinely bland—and not a fallacy spun Bazball. Some of their white-ball regulars had flat-lined, some had withered, the clarity of vision that had marked the Morgan era had vanished. In Buttler’s 39 games as captain in ODIs, England have won 18 and lost 20, including a catastrophic 2023 World Cup. In T20Is, he has a 16-14 win-loss record and failed to defend the T20 crown last year.
Buttler crawled into a deep, dark space. He wondered whether he was culpable for the ouster of Motts. He himself deliberated on relinquishing captaincy and had a frank chat with director of cricket Robert Key. “I said I didn’t want to be doing it (captaincy) 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 confessed.
Buttler’s own form plunged during England’s languishing white-ball season. On the sluggish tracks of the Caribbean and US during the World Cup, he mustered an average of 13.87. His last hundred in 50-overs was 19 innings ago. Just when it seemed that he was restoring his touch during the West Indies bilateral tour, struck the calf injury that consumed four months of his. In McCullum, though, he found a sympathetic voice. The coach would say: “Sometimes when you get that opportunity to lead in the latter part of your career, there’s times where you can be a little bit desperate for success.”
To unburden his captain and unlock his vast potential, McCullum has alleviated him of keeping wickets. “It gives Jos the opportunity to have the last say with the bowler and to have that relationship build at that last second rather than being 22 yards away,” McCullum said. He offers him a success tip too: “If you can let yourself go a little bit with nothing to prove other than trying to get the best out of those around you, sometimes it can free your game up even more and you can end up performing really strongly.”
In the past, Buttler has prospered around men that understood his persona. Like Morgan, who often wore an arm of comfort around him, who persed with him despite inconsency, who trusted his methods and furnished him the freedom to play his natural game, despite criticism and scrutiny. “Jos and I have been friends for a long time and, while we haven’t played together, we’ve often shared similar philosophies on the game and that friendship gives us a really good base to be able to get things going pretty quickly with this team,” McCullum would say.
There are other challenges, of course. The team combination is unsettled, McCullum might not be certain of his best playing eleven, and there would be inexorable pressure to reproduce the Test match thrill and success. But at the heart of England’s white-ball renaissance bid is to resurrect Buttler, as both captain and batsman.
Buttler cannot be remoulded into Stokes, but McCullum believes his white-ball captain’s best days have yet to be. “I’m sure we’ll see Jos over the next couple of years really enjoy himself and hopefully finish with a real strong enjoyment for the game at the back end of his career.” Or as Stokes once said, make Buttler and his men feel 10 feet tall.

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