England captain Jos Buttler was not worried about Australia white-washing them in the recent three-match ODI series which began just four days after England’s T20 World Cup 2022 victory. The ODI series wasn’t part of ICC’s Super League.
England took the field with a depleted side with several of their players busy in Abu Dhabi as part of their preparations for the upcoming Test tour of Pakistan.
“It was always going to be a tough series for us, coming off the back of the World Cup. It’s just been a few games too far and fair play to Australia, they have outplayed us. It’s not part of the ranking system [Super League] so there’s not as much on the games as there would be.
Any time England plays Australia you want to put up good performances, but it’s just been hard. I’m not fussed at all about the results, to be honest. We’ve got exactly what we wanted from [the tour to] Australia,” Buttler told BBC.
Buttler further said that if ICC was trying to make ODI bilateral series relevant with T20Is threatening to eat up the 50-over game, then this series was a perfect example of how not to do it.
The MCG which recorded over 90,000 attendance in the recent T20 World Cup, registered just 10,406 fans for the third ODI which Australia won by 221 runs via the DLS method.
“Just to take care of it, find a way to keep it all relevant. Maybe the ICC tournaments should be a little bit more spread out: it gives you a little bit more time to prepare and it makes them probably a bit more special when they do come around as well.
The landscape of cricket has changed dramatically over the last few years, and we’re in a different time. Lots of people are talking about how you keep bilateral cricket relevant and I think this series is a good example of how probably not to do it," he added.
Buttler is also concerned about the players not getting enough time away from cricket with series overlapping forcing them to pick and choose formats.
“I think one of the biggest things is having overlapping series. We’ve got a group of players preparing for a Test series that shortly starts in Pakistan and we’ve got a team playing here at the same time. In the new year, a Test match [in New Zealand] finishes one day, and an ODI series starts the very next day in Bangladesh.
I feel a bit for the players, to be honest - the ones who are young and coming into the game at the moment. You want to play all formats and I don’t think the schedule really gives you that chance at the minute," he signed off.
(BBC inputs)
