Jos Buttler believes England “should let it hurt” after a shock defeat by Ireland and urged his side to take inspiration from their 2019 World Cup triumph ahead of a potential eliminator against Australia.
Ireland, England’s conquerors at the 2011 50-over World Cup at Bangalore, claimed another memorable win over their rivals in the T20 edition as rain brought a premature end to a gripping contest at the MCG on Wednesday.
England were on 105 for five midway through the 15th over chasing 158 when the heavens opened, which was ultimately decisive as Ireland won by five runs under the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method.
The result blows the Super 12s group wide open and England almost certainly need to win their three remaining fixtures to progress, starting against old enemy Australia at the same venue on Friday.
While there is little time to lick their wounds, Buttler, who accepted his side badly underperformed with both bat and ball, feels there is little sense in trying to hide their emotions.
“We should let it hurt,” the England captain said. “Days like this one are really, really disappointing and you’ve got to feel that. There’s no point saying ‘let’s sweep it under the carpet and move on’.
“Certainly the expectation was on us to win the game. We should be expecting to beat an Ireland team, we expected a challenge but we should be expected to win that game so that adds extra disappointment.
“I think we were a long way short of the standards we set ourselves. (But) the character in the group is strong. We’ll be disappointed but no doubt I expect a reaction from the team.”
Buttler was deputy to Eoin Morgan three years ago when England won their first ODI World Cup, doing so after being faced with must-win fixtures against India and New Zealand in their last two group games.
There are several survivors from that group and Buttler hopes there is enough nous gleaned from global events or franchise tournaments to fall back on as they look to overcome a damaging result.
“Of course,” he said. “There’s a lot of experienced cricketers in our dressing room who would have had setbacks at certain times in their career, whether it be the 2019 World Cup or in franchise tournaments.
“There’s no point trying to hide away from the feelings you have. You’ve got to deal with those very quickly, get over it and look forward to the Australia game.”
After Ireland were asked to bat, they raced to 103 for one in the 12th over but three wickets each for the hostile Mark Wood and the mix-and-match spin of Liam Livingstone wrestled back the initiative.
England, who started their tournament by beating Afghanistan, lurched to 86 for five in response in a worryingly feeble batting display, particularly from their top-order with Buttler, Alex Hales and Ben Stokes not reaching double figures, and they mustered only eight boundaries during their innings.
Four of those came from the blade of Moeen Ali, whose 24 not out from 12 balls amid a flurry of power hitting gave England hope but a downpour ended their chances of getting above the DLS par.
“We didn’t perform well enough, especially in the first 10 overs with the ball,” Buttler said. “We let Ireland get away from us, we dragged it back in the second half but that put a lot of pressure on us.
“Liam Livingstone and Moeen Ali only faced a few balls, two guys with immense power and finishing ability. Is there a way we could have gotten them more involved if we knew the game would be shorter?
“(But) we were a long way short of where we needed to be right throughout the game and Ireland deserved to win.”
Ireland were two overs behind the rate when the rain came and, had Moeen hit the next ball for six – having taken 12 off three deliveries from Gareth Delany – England would have been ahead on DLS.
“Whether it’s gamesmanship that they knew the rain was coming so slowed the game down a bit, but I think we had lost the game before that point,” Buttler added.
“We had all the things in our favour and if we were ahead of DLS they wouldn’t have been slowing the game down so I think we should be taking responsibility ourselves.”
