Joe Root in form of his life, but others need to step up: Buttler

Buttler urged the batters to pull up their socks for England to level the five-Test series at Headingley

England are in a precarious position after their heavy 151-run defeat to India in the second Test at Lord’s. For the hosts to bounce back, the England wicketkeeper-batsman is well aware that the batting has to click.

As of now, England skipper Joe Root is the only one making things incredibly difficult for the Indian bowlers with 386 runs in four innings. Buttler urged the batters to pull up their socks for England to level the five-Test series at Headingley.

‘He needs our support’

“The rest [of the batsmen] need to step up and give Joe more support. He always bats well, but he seems to be in the form of his life. He has got an amazing start to this series. Hopefully, he can continue that way and we improve our games to give him more support. We certainly don’t want to put more pressure on Joe’s shoulders,” Buttler said on Tuesday during a virtual interaction facilitated by series broadcaster, Sony Pictures Network. 

Buttler reckoned experience is one of the major factors that is working for this Indian team. “The most notable one is the experience. The guys have been together from that 2018 tour [to England] with a lot more international games and exposure,” said Buttler.

Wrong tactics

England also got their short-pitched tactics wrong while bowling to Indian tailenders Jasprit Bumrah (34) and Mohammed Shami (56) at Lord’s. The duo put on a match-definning unbeaten 89-run stand for the ninth wicket during the second innings. 

Though Buttler defended the tactic of bowling short, he hoped they will get their plans spot-on going forward in the series. “Sometimes it is good to have a bowler who can bowl incredibly fast as Mark Wood does against lower order batsmen. That is, try and intimidate a couple of times [with the short stuff] and then have a go at the stumps. It’s an option we thought was a good one, but it didn’t work. Obviously, it was disappointing for us. It was a tactic that we thought as a group would work. We will move forward and try to get our tactics spot on,” he said.

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