England took an unassailable lead of 3-0 in the one-day series after winning the 3rd ODI by 16 runs today at Sydney Cricket Ground. Australia won the toss and chose to field first but the decision backfired as England piled up 302/6. In reply, the World Champions could only manage to score 286/6 and conceded the series with two games left.

However, things could have been drastically different for England had their wicket-keeper batsman Jos Buttler not played one of his finest knocks in the 50 overs format. Buttler hit an unbeaten 100 off just 83 balls, and added an unbroken partnership of 113 runs for the 7th wicket with Chris Woakes who scored 53*, after England were in deep trouble at 189/6 in 38 overs.

Buttler's assault on Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins & Josh Hazlewood was appreciated by everyone who witnessed the sensational innings around the world, but the biggest praise came his way from former England skipper Michael Vaughan, who went on to claim that Buttler is currently the best middle order one-day batsman in the world, ahead of India's MS Dhoni.

Talking to BT Sport, Vaughan said, “Buttler’s done this before for England. I remember in Dubai against Pakistan he just exploded from 50 to 100, He’s just got the gift, hasn’t he. I don’t there’s a better middle-order batsman in world white-ball cricket,”

Vaughan went to add that Buttler is now ahead of Dhoni at the art of finishing an innings, “The Indians will go nuts because they’ll say ‘there’s MS Dhoni’. Well, I think Buttler’s just gone ahead of MS Dhoni because of his approach and because of the power he brings,”

“The timing for his team today – they were in a difficult situation – it was a very special partnership led by an unbelievable century from Jos.” he concluded.

Michael Vaughan also took to Twitter to laud Jos Buttler: