T20I series: Buttler services to resume as he stares at Virat Kohli landmark

England’s white-ball captain Jos Buttler is no stranger to Indian conditions, neither are half the members of his 15-member squad for the five-match T20I series against India which begins at Eden Gardens on 22 January.

The aftershocks of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy debacle are still being felt in Indian cricket circles, but the momentum is expected to shift toward the shorter format ahead of a busy few months as soon Buttler & Co. set foot in India on Friday. The T20I series will see the teams crisscrossing the country from 22 January to 2 February with Kolkata, Chennai, Rajkot, Pune and Mumbai hosting the matches.

The three ODIs, which have acquired a great deal of value in terms of match practice ahead of the ICC Champions Trophy in a month’s time, will be staged on 6, 9 and 12 February in Nagpur, Cuttack and Ahmedabad, respectively.

Buttler, who had a poor outing with the bat as well as ODI captain in the 2023 World Cup in India despite England being defending champions, has a landmark beckoning in the upcoming T20I series — he is 151 runs from beating Virat Kohli to become the highest run-getter in this format between India and England. Kohli, now retired from T20Is, has scored 648 runs over 21 games between 2011 and 2024, while Buttler shows 498 in 22 matches across 19 innings, including four half-centuries.

An IPL giant in the true sense of the term despite joining it as late as 2016, the 34-year-old keeper-batter has been an extraordinary contributor in the shortest format, for his franchises as well as the Three Lions. He has so far scored 3,389 runs in 129 T20Is, featuring one century and 25 half-centuries. Kohli has scored 4,188 runs in 125 matches with one century and 38 half-centuries, while Rohit Sharma leads the pack with 4,231 runs in 159 matches, including five centuries and 32 half-centuries.

This season, Buttler will be slipping into the Gujarat Titans shirt after rather memorable stints with Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals. His IPL aggregate of 3,582 runs from 107 matches, with an average of 38.11 and strike rate of 147.53 (including seven centuries) reflects the impact he wielded on the toughest T20 league in the world. In 2022, he rode near superhuman form to strike 863 runs in the season with four centuries to take Royals to the threshold of the title where they lost the final to Titans, his new team.

The Somerset-born player’s reputation hence precedes him in this format, though he would like to address the anomaly in the 50-overs game in the sub-continent. There are also at least six more members of his T20I squad who have been IPL regulars, and this will certainly work to England’s benefit against Surya Kumar Yadav’s men.

England T20I squad: Jos Buttler, Rehan Ahmed, Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Jacob Bethell, Harry Brook, Brydon Carse, Ben Duckett, Jamie Overton, Jamie Smith, Liam Livingstone, Adil Rashid, Saqib Mahmood, Phil Salt, Mark Wood.

ODI squad: Jos Buttler, Jofra Archer, Gus Atkinson, Jacob Bethell, Harry Brook, Brydon Carse, Ben Duckett, Jamie Overton, Jamie Smith, Liam Livingstone, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Saqib Mahmood, Phil Salt, Mark Wood.