The recently concluded series tied at 1-1 where South Africa and England went into the third T20I on Sunday to win the series. While England lost the first game by only one run, South Africa lost the second game by mere two runs. While both teams have been doing their best, England opener Jos Buttler has failed to step up.
He has been going through a rough patch during the Test series as well and the captain Eoin Morgan was asked if Buttler could be sent lower down the batting order for the final game of the series. But Morgan stood by his teammate and said that there would be no change in his batting position for the series decider and Buttler kept his captain’s trust as well.
“Not for Sunday, definitely not. Jos is one of our greatest white-ball cricketers, as a batsman, never mind with the gloves. We believe him, Jason (Roy) and Jonny (Bairstow) are our top three at the moment, moving forward,” he said.
All-rounder Moeen Ali, who smashed an 11-ball 39 in the second T20I, also mentioned that there could be a change in the batting order while keeping the T20 World Cup in mind.
“The lucky thing is that we can change it and we’d be just as strong or even stronger. Jos is brilliant at No. 5 but he’s also brilliant when he opens. So sometimes when he bats at five and plays the way he does, people say he could open and bat like that and bat for longer. Jos is one of our best finishers, but as a 5, 6, 7, 8 we have to get better as well. We can’t just rely on him. If he comes off at the top, we win the game in 10 overs,” he said.
However, Jos Buttler has found his purple patch it seemed as he smashed a quickfire 57 which came off 29 balls. His blistering knock came with the help of 9 fours and 2 towering sixes as well. Apart from him, captain Morgan also played a stormy unbeaten knock of 57 off 22 which decorated with 7 huge sixes. With their blitzy knocks, England chased the huge total 226 with 5 balls to spare.
