"We came third in a two-horse race."

England's world champion 50-over side is not used to days like this.

Before play if you scanned down the teamsheet and saw Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root, Ben Stokes and Jos Buttler's names there, you could not help but reminisce about the last time those five played together in a one-day international - the 2019 World Cup final.

But on a sweltering Tuesday at The Oval, that batting line-up of World Cup heroes crumpled and England were thrashed by 10 wickets by India.

Never before had they lost by such a margin at home.

Not since 2011, when England were playing VHS cricket in a DVD age, have they lost by 10 wickets anywhere in the world.

"It's a very tough day," captain Buttler said. "We came third in a two-horse race.

"It's tough to take."

Over the past seven years in white-ball cricket, batting, as Buttler put it, has been England's "super strength".

Pushed out with Eoin Morgan's instructions to attack still ringing in their ears, they broke the world record ODI score three times, including against the Netherlands three weeks ago.

This time, faced with a lively pitch and a modern great in Jasprit Bumrah, their eagerness to attack proved their downfall.

Opener Roy, whose form is such he is making batting look as complicated as splitting the atom, tried to drive a wide ball and chopped onto his stumps.

Root and Bairstow, eager to get bat to ball, nicked catches through to the wicketkeeper.

Still on nought, Liam Livingstone wandered in the direction of Wimbledon, exposed his stumps and was bowled around his legs.

Even Buttler was caught top-edging to deep square leg.

When rare batting failures occurred during the Morgan era, the Dublin-born skipper was steadfast in sticking to the aggressive message.

Buttler, though, who replaced the now-retired Morgan last month, struck a different tone.

"As a team we talk about being positive and proactive but did the conditions really allow us to counter-attack today?" Buttler said.

"I don't really think they did. So can you sit in and absorb pressure and come through it and bat ugly and come out the other end?

"Maybe we need to add that side, but I'm certainly open to both ways of doing it."

Is this the first example of, to tweak English cricket's favourite phrase at the moment, ButtlerBall?

White-ball cricket is long behind James Anderson, England's all-time leading Test wicket-taker, who watched the game from the commentary box.

"England do have quite a few players - particularly in the top order - who haven't played much white-ball cricket and certainly not together since the World Cup in 2019," he said.

"That could be part of the reason.

"They will just have to figure out if it was the toss, the Indian bowlers or whether they could have done a bit more in the first 10 overs, which pretty much won the game.

"You never know but 250 could perhaps have been a challenge on that wicket."

Much like his predecessor, Buttler was still keen to stress there is "no need to panic" before the second match at Lord's on Thursday.

"India bowled fantastically well and we didn't manage to deal with that as well as we'd have liked," he said.

"You look at the names of the guys in there, they are some of the best players we've had.

"So [there is] certainly no need to panic at all. There's not much time to dwell on it either so it will be a positive to get back out there and put things right on Thursday."

What better place for England's top five to regain their touch than at the ground of the team's greatest moment?

Source: BBC

BDST:1425 HRS, July 13, 2022
MN