Once Jos Buttler walked into the press conference room at Karachi’s National Stadium on Friday night, flanked by Brendon McCullum, what followed was no surprise. This Champions Trophy was always make or break for England’s white-ball captain and, after two defeats extinguished any semi-final hopes, the latter won out.
The cat was pretty much out of the bag two nights earlier in Lahore when, slightly shell-shocked from England’s failed run chase against Afghanistan, Buttler said he would be considering his future. When a captain begins openly asking whether they are “part of the problem” – Buttler’s words that evening – the story rarely ends any other way.
