England captain Jos Buttler rued a costly missed stumping of Rishabh Pant at a critical stage of the game after his team’s painstaking 2-1 ODI series loss to India in Manchester on July 17. For him, the moment that Pant missed his attempted big stroke and he shelved the stumping opportunity was a game-changing one in the context of the chase and the series.
With India finding themselves in a position of great strife at 72/4 chasing the target of 260 on a bouncy Old Trafford surface that got progressively better for batting, Pant played one of the finest one-day knocks in recent times to help the visitors pull off an unlikely victory.
He struck an unbeaten 125 off 113 balls, featuring 16 fours and 2 sixes, and went on earn ‘Player of the Match’ honours for his knock, although a tremendous allround act from Hardik Pandya had a strong claim for it, too. Pandya shared a 133-run stand with Pant and played the innings that changed the game, scoring 71 off 55 balls. He did that having already influenced the match heavily with his spell of four for 24 in the first half.
Pant would not have gone on to produce his finest ODI knock to date if Buttler had held on to a relatively easy stumping chance when the left-hander was batting on 18. He chanced his arms identifying off-spinner Moeen Ali as the weak link, only for him to miss the turning ball. But the sharp turn proved too good for even Buttler, who later regretted his mistake.
“Give good players a second chance, and there’s a good chance they’ll hurt you. Rishabh Pant is a fearless player, someone who is great to watch in all formats. It’s his mentality that sets him apart. He looks like he gets great backing,”
Buttler was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
Even Pandya had offered England a chance to build further inroads into the Indian batting, which features one of contemporary cricket’s weakest tails. He was on six at the time when he played a miscued a pull shot just over the head of the fine-leg fielder. Had England grabbed those opportunities, they would’ve opened one end up.
“If we took those chances, we would probably have had a good hold in the game with a long tail for India. But with the score we put up, we were going to need to take all our chances to have a chance of winning the game,”
Buttler added.
The England skipper, however, denied claims that his missed chance and his string of indifferent scores against India – outside his 60 in Manchester – had something to do with extra pressure on his shoulders because of captaincy duties.
Buttler said he is not feeling burdened by the responsibility of taking over the now-retired Eoin Morgan, who has raised the bar for England captains by winning the 2019 World Cup.
“At times, I’ve found absolutely fine, to be honest. I missed a chance today, but I don’t think that’s got anything to do with captaincy, so I’m not worrying too much about that.
I feel good, I’ve been in some of the best form of my life, and I still feel in great touch. Form isn’t just the score. I’m learning lots, I found the first week busy but I feel more comfortable now,”
Buttler said.
The series loss to India was only England’s third at home in the 50-over version since 2015.
