Jos Buttler seems, in the best way, nice. That’s a terrible thing to say about anyone. It damns them as insipid, unremarkable, a blunt knife, lacking in the stuff it takes to make it in the world. Still, even nice people shouldn’t be lumped with the lot left to Buttler during last year’s men’s World Cup.
There he sat, too many times more than is healthy, trying to explain why England were making an unmitigated mess of defending their title. Or trying not to explode in anger or implode in embarrassment. He did neither, of course. Nice guys don’t. They smile and use their words in measured tones, and ignore the barbs and brickbats along with the insinuations and innuendos that come with that tortuous territory. As Buttler did so, again and again, smiling a sacrificial lamb’s smile without fail, it was difficult not to feel sorry for him.
So there was a frisson of something like shock in seeing Buttler remonstrate with umpire Sharfuddoula during England’s T20 World Cup match against South Africa in St Lucia on Friday. Sharfuddoula had, at Quinton de Kock’s canny instigation, asked Joel Wilson upstairs to take a look at what happened as De Kock’s slog sweep off Adil Rashid dipped groundward at deep backward square leg in the ninth over. After several replays, Wilson decided Mark Wood had not got his fingers under the ball before it met the turf. Not out.
Buttler, the sharpness of his shoulder aimed at Sharfuddoula, his neck bent in the same direction, his eyes searing the uncomfortably short distance between him and the umpire, wasn’t having it. What do you mean not out? Better question: Nice? This guy?
De Kock was 58 not out off 30 when he was reprieved. It was his second half-century in as many innings and he seemed cleared for take-off for a hundred. But, 22 balls later, Buttler was roaring in triumph. De Kock had thrown his bat at a cutter from Jofra Archer and the edge had flown hard, high and wide. But not hard, high and wide enough to evade Buttler, who was cleared for take-off himself and snared the ball in his left glove and held on as he tumbled to earth. Umpire Wilson’s call had cost England just seven De Kock runs.
In the 14th Buttler launched himself down leg to intercept a veering delivery from Wood that had been pushed wider still by connecting with Heinrich Klaasen’s pad. Four balls after that in the same over, Wood homed in on Klaasen, backing away to leg to make room for an off-side assault, with a bouncer. David Miller called for a run as the ball squirted wide of Buttler, who had to haul it in and throw down the stumps at the non-striker’s end with Klaasen well short of his ground. It looked like Klaasen, a wicketkeeper himself, remember, hadn’t given Buttler a chance of doing what he did.
Buttler was roaring again, and justifiably. Maybe, when you’re busy with your 422nd T20, as Buttler was on Friday, you can see a close game coming from a long way away. And you play accordingly. Or not like the South Africans did for too much of their innings.
“We kind of went into a dwaal in the middle [overs] there,” Miller told a television interviewer between innings. Dwaal? It’s an Afrikaans word that means dreamy or dazed, and it summed up the way South Africa batted. Having reached 63 without loss in their powerplay, England limited them to 100 runs in the remaining 14 overs.
England had chased 181 with something approaching ease at the same ground on Wednesday to beat West Indies by eight wickets with 15 balls to spare. Would a target of 164 be big enough to hold them? It didn’t seem it would when 52 runs flowed from the start of the 15th to the end of the 17th overs, which were bowled by Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje and Ottneil Baartman. With 18 balls left in the game, England needed 25.
But two fine catches in the deep by Tristan Stubbs and Aiden Markram removed Harry Brook and Liam Livingstone, who had shared 78 off 42 to put the English ahead, a dozen deliveries apart. Markram’s effort – sprinting 18 metres towards the boundary from mid-on, diving and making the grab over his shoulder – would have done Willie Mays proud.
When the dust cleared it emerged that South Africa had won by seven runs; exactly as many runs as De Kock scored after he survived Wood’s non-catch. Buttler knew it would be tight, but that tight? He is a sharp knife after all. And, in the best way, not at all nice.
