England’s white-ball coach Mattew Mott has provided an update on star batter Jos Buttler, who continues to recover from an injury. Notably, Buttler has been out of action since August after he sustained a calf strain while representing Manchester Originals in England’s 100-ball tournament, The Hundred.
Buttler, currently, is in Pakistan but hasn’t played any of the matches against the hosts in the ongoing seven-match T20I series. The series is levelled at 2-2 after Pakistan won the thrilling fourth T20I on Sunday.
Mott said that he doesn’t want to take a risk with Buttler ahead of the upcoming T20 World Cup, mentioning the wicketkeeper-batter is getting better slowly, and they might try him in the last couple of games against Pakistan.
“With regard to Jos, he’s still a while off, he’s not a player we want to take a risk on at this stage, so close to the World Cup, and it was a reasonably significant injury that he had,” said Mott in his post match press conference
“So, he’s champing at the bit for a game, but we’ll just try and see how we go and maybe in the last game or two, we might give him a chance,” he added.
Meanwhile, Buttler said the upcoming multi-team event is a kind of free hit for England but admitted that they aren’t the favourites heading into the tournament.
“When you look ahead, there’s ICC events pretty much every year, so there’s always stuff to build towards, there’s always exciting times. I think this World Cup coming up now is actually a bit of a free hit for us, it’s very early in our time as a team. We’ve got a squad full of match winners, and I think that’s an exciting place to be as a T20 team looking ahead to that World Cup,” said Buttler.
