T20 World Cup: When will Jos Buttler start lording it over rivals again?

As Jos Buttler failed with the bat one more time — this time against minnows Italy at Eden Gardens on Monday — alarm bells were surely ringing about the future of arguably England’s greatest ever white-ball batter. The 2022 T20 World Cup-winning captain’s sequence of scores in the ongoing World T20 runs like this: 26, 21, 3, 3.

It’s been somewhat symptomatic of the below-par performance of Harry Brook’s men so far who, man-to-man, make for one of the strongest squads in the tournament. They have figured in almost all experts’ list of semi-finalists, but their cricket has been a far cry from the gung-ho style that head coach Brendon McCullum would like to see.

A late blitz from young Turk Will Jacks set the stage for a 24-run win against Italy in their last group game and sealed a Super Eight berth alright, but not before the debutants gave spirited chase to a steep target of 203.

During a post-match chat after beating Scotland in the previous game, Brook said they did not mind ‘winning ugly’ but there can be no compromise on the need for a good start by Buttler and Phil Salt. This is where Buttler, the third-highest scorer in the history of the T20 World Cup (1,066 runs) has been lacklustre — often seeming anxious to break free of the shackles too soon instead of trying to take a few balls to settle down as per his style.

His last nine T20I innings have yielded only one 30-plus score, making the 35-year-old look a pale shadow of his former self, who had almost singlehandedly shut out India from the semi-finals of the 2022 World T20. This is his seventh T20 World Cup (yes, starting 2012) and he is one of the five survivors of England’s glorious phase between 2019 and 2022, though his performance started taking a dip when they endured a miserable title-defence campaign in the 2023 ODI World Cup in India.

There are few better sights in the game than Buttler in full flow, given that he remains one of the cleanest strikers of the white ball — though his red-ball career, in his own words, was somewhat "unfulfilled".

Shrugging off his poor form in the last T20 World Cup in the US and Caribbean, Buttler cobbled together 214 from eight games to be England’s highest run-getter in the tournament and the fourth highest in the event, but they bowed out to India in the semi-finals.

However, back on the sluggish surfaces of the UAE and Pakistan, Buttler was struggling again in the ICC Champions Trophy last year, and its aftermath saw Brook replace him as white-ball captain. It was a clear indication that the team management was looking beyond him at the helm, and the veteran must survive solely as a player now.

Now that England have ensured a berth in the next stage of the tournament, Buttler could well be that one hit away from a big score. If not, there is a certain pintsized Ben Duckett waiting in the wings!