When Jos Buttler walked into the press conference room at Karachi’s National Stadium on Friday night, flanked by Brendon McCullum, what followed was no surprise. This Champions Trophy was always make or break for England’s white-ball captain and, after two defeats extinguished any semi-final hopes, the latter won out.
The cat was pretty much out of the bag two nights earlier in Lahore when, slightly shell-shocked from England’s failed run chase against Afghanistan, Buttler said he would be considering his future. Once a captain begins openly asking whether they are “part of the problem” – Buttler’s words that evening – the story rarely ends any other way.
Related: Jos Buttler steps down as captain of England’s white-ball cricket team
After arriving in Karachi 24 hours later, scene of Saturday’s final group game against South Africa, Buttler flicked McCullum a message asking him to come to his room for a chat. Knowing what this was likely to mean, the head coach initially thought about persuading him otherwise. Instead, stopping to think for a moment, McCullum accepted it was time.
Thereafter it was about informing the players, the pair announcing it in the team room at the hotel the next day before the bus set off for training. Joe Root was originally slated to speak to the media, with the sight of Buttler and McCullum striding across the floodlit outfield offering the first hint that something more significant was coming.
The good news, McCullum stressed, is that after leading the team out one last time, Buttler intends to carry on as a player. As well as flatlining results, and the loss of two world titles in the past 18 months, this may be the crux. The runs have worryingly dried up for Buttler at the past three major events but, even aged 34 and with his market value in the franchise world still high, he remains unsated in an England shirt.
To that end, Buttler said he wanted to learn from Joe Root on how best to operate as a former captain. Root’s time in charge of the Test team – the final days of which bore striking similarities to these past few weeks – has been followed by some of the most golden years of his career under Ben Stokes. Right now, England having lost their aura in white-ball cricket, they need their premier white-ball batter to do the same.
Under whom is the question here, even if Harry Brook, the vice-captain who led the team against Australia last summer, appears the likeliest choice. McCullum said he would take “a couple of weeks” to decide but, with the schedule starting to ease, the New Zealander believes that being a multi-format player, as Brook is, should be no impediment.
Things had started so brightly for Buttler too. After serving his apprenticeship as Eoin Morgan’s deputy during England’s thunderous four-year charge to World Cup glory in 2019, he took the role full-time in 2022. Later that year, alongside a new head coach in Matthew Mott, Buttler lifted the T20 World Cup in Australia. Even with a suspicion that all this was built on the foundations laid by Morgan, the good times appeared set to roll on.
English cricket has a history of struggling to win on all fronts, however. Once the Test side led by Ben Stokes and McCullum took over as the priority, the bilateral white-ball series morphed into proving grounds as the big names rested. England then tried to throw much of the old band back together for the World Cup defence in India, hoping the same music would flow. Instead, what they got was a succession of bum notes.
The nadir came against South Africa when, already reeling in the group stage, Buttler ignored the rising mercury of the heatwave in Mumbai and stuck his opponents in. What followed summed up a dismal campaign as a whole, Heinrich Klaasen delivering the kind of brain-boiling century that was suddenly beyond England’s fading world champions.
Rob Key, the team director who initially hired Mott as a light touch foil for the all-powerful Morgan, offered the pair a second chance at last year’s T20 World Cup. The journey to a semi-final defeat at the hands of India was unconvincing to say the least, Buttler increasingly tetchy in public, no team of note beaten, and the tactics baffling at times.
Out went Mott, Key expanding McCullum’s brief in the hope it would defibrillate results, as occurred with the Test team. Instead, nine defeats from 10 has brought his methods into question almost immediately. Little wonder, having briefly thought about dissuading Buttler the captain, McCullum found the idea of resuscitating the batter more appealing.
