‘It’s a no-brainer’ - Vaughan backs Buttler to take over as England white-ball captain

Former England captain Michael Vaughan has backed Jos Buttler to take over the white-ball reins from Eoin Morgan, after the latter announced his retirement from all forms of international cricket on Tuesday, June 29.
 By CX Staff Writer Jun 29, 2022, 22:39 IST
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Buttler has captained England in 14 limited-overs games till date.
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Eoin Morgan officially announced his retirement from international cricket on Tuesday, and that marked an end of an outstanding white-ball batting and captaincy career for England. Morgan led the team to new heights following its disappointing exit from the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, and lifted them to the No.1 ranking in ODIs and a maiden World Cup win in 2019.

They finished runners-up and the semi-finalists in the 2016 and 2021 editions of the T20 World Cup respectively.

Michael Vaughan, the former England captain, has backed Jos Buttler to take over the captaincy with Morgan’s exit. Buttler, England’s ODI and T20I vice-captain currently, has led the team in nine ODIs and five T20Is till date.

"For me it's a no-brainer that Jos Buttler takes over that role. He's the best white-ball player in the world, he's got a very smart cricket brain, and he's got that calmness you need," Vaughan wrote in his column for The Telegraph.

Vaughan also agreed with Kumar Sangakkara’s idea of employing Buttler as an opener in Tests, with the recurring top-order failures being a worrying factor for England in recent times.

"We've always talked about him batting at seven, batting with the tail," Sangakkara had said while on commentary for Sky Sports during the recent England-New Zealand Test series, which the hosts won 3-0.

"We've seen Sehwag, Hayden, all of them opening the innings – why not Buttler?"

Vaughan, the 2005 Ashes winning captain, felt that Buttler could be a great fit in Test side under the Ben Stokes-Brendon McCullum regime.

"England have this fearless, aggressive nature, and the balls don't seem to be doing as much in the UK as they have done in previous seasons,” he said. “If something as radical Buttler as a Test opener was ever going to work it would be now, under this management group of Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum. I'd love to see him in this group playing like he played in the IPL.

"When he was opening this year he played quite conventionally. And then he got in and started to flourish. Of course, he's still going to have difficulty if the ball swings around like it did in the first innings, but when its flat like we saw in the second innings, he could murder teams with complete freedom to go and attack, Virender Sehwag style.

"Why not? England are generally one down early anyway, so they might as well be one down early by someone having a big old yahoo."


 

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