Former England cricketer Mark Butcher slammed Jos Buttler & Co for their heavy 229-run loss to South Africa in the Men’s ODI World Cup in Mumbai, saying that their decision-making was ‘shambolic’ and made no sense in Saturday’s game.
England allowed South Africa to score 399/7 after being 243/5 at one point, with Heinrich Klaasen blazing his way to a 67-ball 109 and Marco Jansen hammering a 42-ball unbeaten 75. In reply, England succumbed to scoreboard pressure and were restricted to 170 in 22 overs.
“Conventional wisdom seems to be a very last-century thing, doesn’t it? However, boiling hot conditions, shortening your batting lineup to have Adil Rashid batting at eight and then deciding to field in the heat of the day, leaving yourself short in the batting department is just completely and utterly baffling to me.”
“Regardless of anything else, regardless of the three changes that they made – and I didn’t see them coming, I thought Woakes and Curran would probably not play but I didn’t see the change to bring Willey in as well and leave out Livingstone. I mean that blew my mind right from the off.”
“However, the basic decisions around what you do if you win the toss and the composition of your team and how that plays into the decision you make has just completely blown my mind today. It was shambolic, none of it made any sense,” Butcher told Wisden World Cup Daily podcast.
England's 229-run defeat to South Africa, also their heaviest loss ever, was their defeat in four games in this World Cup, leaving the defending champions in a deep hole in the race to the semifinals, climbing out of which looks incredibly difficult now.
“Despite the fact that we had a couple of windows of opportunity having taken five wickets before the 40th over and it kind of looked as though damage limitation was possible, England just didn’t have the energy to be able to drive home that slender advantage that they gained. What you got in the end was an absolute massacre,” added Butcher.
Looking over the reasons for England’s poor performance in the tournament till now, Butcher thinks talks will happen over the lack of 50-over cricket being played by the side in the build-up period.
“There will be all kinds of inquests about not giving 50 over cricket any sort of real prominence, I suppose, in the domestic calendar, which I don’t think has made a massive amount of difference to this tournament but it would have been a bad look… perhaps horrendous is a team or a country that doesn’t give any real seriousness to 50-over cricket would have ended up being back-to-back 50-over champions.”
Butcher also called for clarity over Buttler’s position as England’s white-ball captain once England’s campaign is over in the World Cup. “I think the time perhaps to answer that is once the whole thing is done. Although it has been my suspicion and was even up to the World T20 that perhaps there wasn’t as much clarity of thought and vision and certainly not the same tactical acumen moving from Morgan to Jos.”
“Fabulous player, one of England’s very, very best. But my suspicion is he doesn’t quite have his finger on the pulse, he doesn’t read the game quite as well as the guy who was before him. But at this moment in time, they have what they have. And talking about whether they’re the right people going forward is something that we should do once it’s done.”
