England’s hotel in Pune, host city for Wednesday’s exercise in sporting nihilism against the Netherlands, comes equipped with a spa, grooming salon, outdoor pool, gym, three bars, three restaurants, delicatessen, a selection of ballrooms, a massage parlour and, among many other advertised treatments, a bespoke male full-body waxing facility.
With any luck Jos Buttler, who has looked progressively more drained through this open casket procession of a World Cup defence, was persuaded to undertake a high-speed pitstop through every single one of these wellbeing facilities during England’s day off on Monday.
There is an irony in the fact that modern-day elite cricketers regularly find themselves holed up in this kind of executive chill-retreat, shrines to self-pampering, while simultaneously engaging in the most draining schedule devised by any global sport. Buttler is one of many to have spoken of the challenge of staring blankly at a hotel wall en route to the next adrenaline-choked big night out. If there is some consolation for England’s players on the staged collapse in eight Indian cities, it is at least likely to be a very nice wall.
But there is also a vital lesson to be taken, as the autopsies roll on of England’s World Cup defence, which must be in the conversation for the most dismal of any champion team in any sport. Why have England not just stunk the place out, but stunk the place out to an irredeemable degree? How has this team managed to perform in a way that steps beyond the normal metrics of playing badly and strays into the realms of the walking dead?
There is a prosaic answer, but surely also the correct one. Never mind selection, balance or the age of the squad. England’s players are exhausted – and exhausted on a planned, industrial scale never previously achieved. If this is a mundane answer, it also speaks to the unignorable structural problems with the sport. It should also never be allowed to happen again.
“Pale eyes, whispery voice, a preference for monosyllables, all contribute to the sad-puppy visage,” was the Indian Express verdict on Buttler after and also during the defeat by Australia. And yes, as the paper noted, Buttler always looks a bit like that, would look like that after spanking a hundred off 52 balls after six months in a Nepalese sleep retreat, having recently won the world arm‑wrestling championship.
But his lack of verve is also a logical consequence, just as England’s players basically look like what they are, humans at the stage where getting away with it, muddling along and managing constant strain no longer becomes sustainable, exposed in the harshest of light at this continental‑scale tournament.
This can be fixed. But it is first necessary to acknowledge that the scandalous itinerary is inevitably going to degrade the spectacle. This England team is a warning from the future. You can have quality or you can have endless gurgling homogenised product. But not both.
Drill down into Buttler’s workload and it reads like a social experiment in the limits of human capacity for professional sport. Since October 2021, he has played in 12 events in eight countries with 14 complete shifts of suitcase‑dwelling life, while also competing at three World Cups, two IPLs and an Ashes series.
England’s captain has played in 24 out of 26 months, his only respite February 2022, when he was out with a broken finger, and December that year with the oversight of a free month between the T20 World Cup and a franchise gig.
Compare this to Virat Kohli, the most in-demand cricketer in the world, and one difference stands out. Kohli has also played constantly and is also being asked to carry a ludicrous burden. But he has also shifted location less often and has been in India for 17 of the past 26 months, while Buttler has been at home for nine months.
Kohli’s schedule is marginally more sensible, driven by the fact India has more say in how this works and has preserved a proper home summer. Kohli played his last T20 in May 2023, whereas Buttler has played 37 T20s in the six months before this tournament, and is, like the ECB, and all cricketers on that circuit, just out there chasing the game, following the prompts of the mercurial ICC‑BCCI compass.
At the end of which we have this: random competitions, a product that is devalued and a game that is simply eating itself because the eating just feels so good.
There will be limited sympathy from some quarters. Buttler is doing this of his own volition. Mitchell Starc, for example, stopped playing franchise cricket because of the strain. Buttler is handsomely paid by his employers at the ECB, IPL, SA T20 and the Hundred, to the extent he earns more than any other England cricketer ever has.
He has accepted these opportunities while remaining a wonderfully entertaining and selfless player, not to mention a role model and all-round good guy. But sometimes regulation is also a blessing and at times Buttler appears to have simply hurled himself into this new world, out there riding not just one horse but every horse with the same backside, a man trying to wear the Aramco Cap while also modelling the ECB T-shirt for tolerance. This is new. But we do at least know what happens now. Something will give.
In Buttler’s case, there is evidence that one casualty is his own game. This isn’t just the numbers, which are terrible (115 runs in seven innings). It’s his skillset too. Here’s an odd fact: Buttler hasn’t played a single scoop, paddle or reverse sweep at this tournament. A batter defined by bold innovations, with the skill to scoop 150kph balls from Anrich Nortje for six at the 2020 IPL, has hit two boundaries behind square (one an edge).
Buttler has played like a hesitant orthodox batter, like he did in Tests, devoid of devil or F-it style aggression. He plays those shots less in ODIs and pitches have not been conducive to creative strokeplay. But it is also the case that Buttler has played 138 T20 games and 29 ODIs in the last four-year cycle, narrowing his most common role to Powerplay opener, whacking it over the infield on flat decks.
This is just a more limited range. Skills atrophy. Specialising makes you a specialist. Buttler has said he does little analysis of his batting while shifting formats, just trusts himself to adapt. For whatever reason, the ODI giant who was able to play through the gears, who produced such a fine, rounded innings in the 2019 final, has not been seen in India.
That energy drain has come in more collective form, too. We have seen England meltdowns before. The difference in India is the lack of anger, drive, shared team will. England have no answers, just a sense of shared ennui. This is an international team in the process of dissolving. What will they take with them?
As for Buttler’s immediate future, there is a powerful argument for giving something up: wicketkeeping, the ODI captaincy (England have lost 15 of their past 24) or ODIs altogether. His talent remains luminous, his intentions good. It would be heartening to see him spank the Netherlands around Pune then sprint off for a full‑body Korean massage on Wednesday night.
For now, this England team is a living, breathing, red-eyed warning to the whole of cricket; even if the most surprising thing would be for anyone to actually listen.
