Jos Buttler has no regrets over England changes despite ODI defeat

Jos Buttler stood by England’s decision to deviate from the tried and true despite losing to Bangladesh, who avoided a one-day international series with a 50-run win at Chattogram.

This dead rubber had a slightly experimental feel as debutant Rehan Ahmed was the only Englishman to bowl his full quota, while champion legspinner Adil Rashid only delivered five overs.

Sam Curran was also promoted to fifth in batting order, having played exclusively on seven or eight in his previous 15 ODIs, moving ahead of England captain Buttler and his second-in-command Moeen Ali.

The tweaks met with modest success as Ahmed, after becoming England’s youngest men’s ODI player, took one for 62 and Curran hit 23 balls from 49 while the tourists, who chased 247, all went out for 196 in 43.1 overs .

“(I have) no regrets at all,” Buttler said. “I thought it made sense to give Rehan a chance to bowl – seeing him bowl and bowl in front of good players puts a little pressure on him, which is great.

“I thought he did really well. He’s not lacking in confidence, he’s very confident in his abilities which is fantastic for a young man. He was ready to bowl on very aggressive fields and challenge himself, which bodes well for the future. For a guy making his debut, I thought he did brilliantly well.

“It was absolutely an opportunity to make Rehan’s debut, for Sam to beat at number five. I see great potential in Sam Curran’s batting.

“It was an opportunity to gather as much information as possible and expose people to different situations. If we lost the game, so be it, but I believed we had a team and a performance that could have won the game.”

Having won 2-1 in a row, England now face no further ODI until September, when defending their World Cup crown in India will be just weeks away.

Buttler hinted ahead of this series that he had an inkling of his best line-up and while that remains the case, he believes England will have plenty of options later this year.

“You have an idea, but there’s still a long way to go,” Buttler said. “I’m sure things will happen over time that can change, but we’re in a really strong position.

“We have a lot of really talented players, some very experienced players who are also not here at the moment, so we have a really difficult selection.”

Buttler and white-ball head coach Matthew Mott have rarely been able to assemble a full-strength roster in ODIs or T20s due to injuries and the priority given to the Test team amid a hectic game schedule.

However, Buttler is aware that there was a similar situation last year in the months leading up to the T20 World Cup, when the big guns were once again put aside in a tournament that England went on to win.

“The schedule is a huge challenge to get your best starting XI on the field,” Buttler added. “If we look back at the T20 World Cup, we probably went in without playing our perceived best XI.

“We had to get into the tournament and we won it, it gives you a lot of confidence even if we haven’t had the opportunity to always play against our best team for a while.

“International cricket is becoming more and more focused on the ICC tournaments and we are building towards that. We know the World Cup is coming and we will have the opportunity to choose from all that are available.”