England vs India T20 talking points: Brook’s promise, too long tail and too many jobs for Jos Buttler?

The tourists put 198 at the Ageas Bowl with Hardik Pandya as the top scorer at 51 before breaking England’s opening order.

Buttler was thrown first since the answer started badly and just a short interlude of scoring from Moeen Ali and Harry Brook pushed against the current.

Here’s a look at the main talking points of the match…

Universe Jos: too much on his plate?

This is day one of Buttler’s captaincy and it’s too early to draw too many conclusions – especially his golden duck to an absolute peach of Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

But there’s one thought to consider: skipper, goalkeeper, opener is a pretty big question. He tops the rankings, the best in the world in that role, so it may be worth considering whether he should stay in the World Cup or not.

In Jonny Bairstow, England will have at least one other goalkeeper of similar class in their XI, which would take a thing off Buttler’s plate. He made no mistakes here (there was a half chance of Matt Parkinson tapping Hardik’s pad before reaching Buttler), but they seem more likely with more on his mind. Keeping also takes him further away from his bowlers, to whom he can offer calm advice in times of need.

Of course there are advantages to keeping. He is good at it and has been in this team for years. He has a front row seat to ratings and a good view of the field. But it’s a lot of concentrating to do.

What is the best balance?

In general, England under Eoin Morgan piled up their batting and were sometimes exposed to the ball. Here they gave themselves seven bowling options, with three all-rounders in the top six: Buttler, Moeen Ali and Liam Livingstone. Only Reece Topley, Chris Jordan and Matt Parkinson threw their full allotment of four overs, and Sam Curran only made it through two.

The nip came with the early wickets chasing and the fact that Curran and Jordan, at numbers 7 and 8, came together in the 13th over. Worse, the presence of three real No11s – Tymal Mills, Topley and Parkinson – was at the bottom of the order. The presence of Adil Rashid, Chris Woakes and even Jofra Archer or Mark Wood would have contributed to this, but it still felt top heavy.

If Ben Stokes returns for the World Cup, perhaps for Dawid Malan at number 3, they will have yet another bowler in the top six (even if Stokes rarely bowled all four). Could that give them room for a new batter, especially a specialist in the bottom of the innings? In fact, that could have been the role Morgan could have lined himself up for, until he changed his mind…

brook bubbles

Among the rubble, this was a promising performance from Harry Brook. 28 out of 23 from the England number 5 after such a disastrous start would never be enough, but he kept his composure in a desperate situation and played some nice shots. It also took a good catch to get him.

Brook has kept his good form for Yorkshire during a spell carrying drinks for England, but is on both white-ball squads this month for more senior rivals such as James Vince and Sam Billings, so he’s even more likely to make his case to defend. He is extremely highly regarded by the English hierarchy, so he isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Swing when you win?

England found very little swing with the new ball, via Sam Curran and Reece Topley, being able to extract movement. India, on the other hand, found swing during the power play, most notably when Bhuvneshwar threw a ball through Buttler’s defense.

Buttler joked that it might have been better if the England openers had thrown the ball into the stands or put up billboards a few times, but he might consider bringing David Willey back to attack at the top. He would also strengthen the lower order.