England white-ball – Buttler out of Pakistan tour, and doubt for Australia, after hamstring injury

Jos Buttler will miss England’s ODI tri-series in Pakistan next month with a hamstring injury and is a significant doubt for their subsequent white-ball tour to Australia. It means that Jordan Cox is set for an extended run with the gloves and in the middle order, as Brendon McCullum looks to further test England’s depth ahead of next year’s 50-over World Cup.

Buttler pulled up with a hamstring injury during England’s defeat to Sri Lanka at Headingley on Thursday, and initially retired hurt before briefly resuming his innings. The ECB are waiting to learn the exact extent of the injury but McCullum has ruled him out of October’s Pakistan tri-series and Cricinfo has learned that he is highly unlikely to return in time for November’s Australia tour.

McCullum has taken inspiration from the All Blacks’ scenario-planning ahead of the 2015 Rugby World Cup, and believes that England must “catastrophise” in case they lose key players to injury in southern Africa next year. Cox, who made his maiden ODI half-century in Sunday’s series decider as Buttler’s replacement, will be the beneficiary in Pakistan.

“I thought it was quite a Jos Buttler innings today,” McCullum said, after Cox’s 76 off 52 balls at The Oval. “He will get the opportunity in Pakistan, which is exciting for him. Whilst it’s disappointing not to have Jos, it’s going to be good for us to see where we’re at, because between now and 14 months’ time, lots of things are going to go wrong.

“There’s going to be lots of selections that you think would happen, and teams that you think will be the best teams to play against opposition, but someone will get injured or there’ll be a scheduling situation. You have to almost catastrophise these things a little bit in order to prepare yourself as best as possible for that World Cup in 14 months’ time.”

McCullum was buoyed, therefore, by England’s dominant performance in the absence of four first-choice players on Sunday, with Jacob Bethell (knee), Sam Curran (groin), Adil Rashid (hand) and Buttler (hamstring) all missing. “Whilst you don’t want those injuries to happen, it does give you a good line on where you’re at with some of the depth in your squad,” he said.

He had been concerned that the absences of Bethell and Curran would make England easy to plan against, leaving Ben Duckett as their only left-handed batter. “We had to live with the amount of right-handers we had in this series, but they performed really well,” McCullum said. “Tom Banton [who scored his maiden international hundred no Sunday] has been unbelievable… The way he plays is exceptional.”

Changes to the World Cup’s format mean that England would need to play 13 games to win the trophy, making injuries inevitable. “We know that that schedule is demanding,” McCullum said. “I want us to be the fittest, fastest, most dynamic and robust cricket team out there, and I genuinely believe that we’ve still got room for growth in that area.”

McCullum hinted that Curran – who, like Buttler, was at The Oval on Sunday – and Rashid are in line to return for the Pakistan tour, where England will play either four or five ODIs in a tri-series with the hosts and Sri Lanka. The ECB have previously suggested that Bethell will not make his comeback until the tour to Australia, where England play three ODIs and five T20Is.

In total, England will play either 20 or 21 ODIs before next year’s World Cup, with three in South Africa (January) followed by five each against Pakistan (May) and New Zealand (September). Curiously, given his aversion to them as a Test coach, McCullum said that he wants to add “a smattering of warm-up games” to the schedule to grow his players’ 50-over experience.

The ECB have already spoken to Cricket Australia about adding practice matches to the start of their tour in November, for example. “Aside from Jos, Joe and Adil Rashid, there’s not a lot of experience in that side,” McCullum said. “You’ve got to try to navigate what you can and try to include what you can alongside the opposition you’re playing and make sure they are of high quality.”

England will select their squad for the Pakistan tri-series on Monday and announce it publicly later this week. They will prioritise 50-over cricket over the next year, with their all-format fast bowlers – Jofra Archer and Josh Tongue, for example – likely to miss the T20Is in Australia as they prepare for December’s Test tour to South Africa.

Tongue is among the England players weighing up whether to enter the upcoming IPL auction, pitting the prospect of a lucrative contract against a busy year featuring both an Ashes and a World Cup. McCullum stopped short of advising those players on which to choose, but said that he had no reason to doubt anyone’s commitment to playing for England.

“I know that the guys that sit in that dressing-room are desperate to play for England. That is their ambition,” he said. “Lots of guys in that room have given up franchise opportunities because they are committed to England, and that’s a really good place to be. Other guys may have time on their hands and get great opportunities in franchise cricket… It’s a case-by-case scenario.”

Sunday’s ODI brought England’s home season to a close, and their international summer will be remembered primarily for a chaotic defeat to New Zealand at Trent Bridge which coincided with Ben Stokes’s dramatic retirement and ultimately cost McCullum his job as Test coach. McCullum insisted that England ended the summer in a better place than they had started it, citing white-ball series wins over India and Sri Lanka.

“It’s been eventful, but it’s been a great summer in many respects,” he said. “I genuinely feel right now, at the end of the summer, that English cricket is actually in a really good place. I’m biased because he’s a great mate of mine, but I think he’s a great coach and he’s going to do an incredible job alongside Joe Root, in Stephen Fleming, [who is] now at the helm of the Test side.

“And the performances and development of the ODI and T20 sides across the summer has been something which has been incredibly encouraging. Harry Brook’s development as a leader on the field and his growth as a person off it has been superb, and overall, I feel as if while it’s been an eventful few months, I feel like [English cricket] is in a really good space.”

Vithushan Ehantharajah is an associate editor at Cricinfo, Matt Roller is senior correspondent

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