ICC T20 WORLD CUP 2022

October 28, 2022

Jos Buttler

Melbourne Cricket Ground

England

Post Match Media Conference

Q. Hi, Jos. A bit of a frustrating night there. Can I ask what you were saying to the umpires during inspection? Were you happy to get on there?

JOS BUTTLER: No, they had some big concerns, and I think rightly so. The outfield is very wet. There's some areas inside the 30 yard circle which were not fit to play.

So as much as we all want to play cricket and stuff, it has to be safe, and it certainly wasn't that.

Q. You had some concerns about your bowlers, Chris, Mark, and the rest of the fastballers?

JOS BUTTLER: I think every bowler who would have bowled, if you'd have played, you would have had concerns over that. Player safety is really important, and it wasn't fit to play. Whether it's our bowlers or Australia's bowlers, I think that the right call unfortunately was made.

Q. Would you have taken a point for today?

JOS BUTTLER: No, we'd come here wanting to win the game.

Q. Obviously set up to be quite a big occasion here in Melbourne, but so much rain, so much wet weather. How are your frustrations about the timing of this tournament and whether or not anything could be done in that regard?

JOS BUTTLER: I don't really have any frustrations. I'm not a weather expert on Australia this time of year. We all want to play full games of crickets. We all do.

Naturally we play a sport that's in the open air, and the elements are a huge part of our game. They affect surfaces we play on. They affect conditions. They're an intriguing bit of what makes the sport really unique.

Now unfortunately we've had two games affected by weather. You don't want to be involved in those games, but it's going to happen wherever you play, or certainly some places you play in the world, you're generally going to be affected by some weather at some point.

Yeah, it's a shame tonight, especially for everybody involved -- the fans who were going to come and watch this game live, everyone wanting to watch on TV, for players especially as well. Australia against England at the MCG in a must win World Cup match is as big as it gets in your career, and they're the games you want to be involved in.

No matter whatever the result was going to be, it's something you want to experience as a cricket team. You don't know how often those kinds of opportunities will come around. So I think there's an element of sadness that you don't get to, win, lose, or draw, play the match.

Q. You've got two more games left. You're always trying to look to the next game. Do you feel as though destiny is still in your own hands? You get two wins, and because you're the last team to play, you've still got a chance to kind of work out what you need to do?

JOS BUTTLER: Listen, until something's completely out of our control, we won't worry about that. We know we've got two games left to play. We want to win those two games, give ourselves the best chance to get through to the next round.

Q. Jos, it looked like when you were having a chat with the umpires on second inspection, both you and Ireland weren't keen to play and had concerns about player safety. Were you ever under any pressure to get the game on, or were the umpires agreeing with you guys?

JOS BUTTLER: I don't think there's any pressure from anyone. I think commonsense prevailed. As disappointing as it is, as I just mentioned, for everybody involved, the conditions weren't fit to play.

Q. And that next game on Tuesday against New Zealand, it's a virtual World Cup final, I guess, now for you guys. New Zealand, World Cup final, what can go wrong?

JOS BUTTLER: Yeah, we'd do well to live up to that one, wouldn't it? For us, we knew, having lost the game against Ireland with three -- the way the format is anyway, every game is pretty much a must win.

Look, we know we need to turn up and play our best cricket, give ourselves the best chance to win the games and give ourselves the best chance to go through to the next round.

Q. Just how big of an advantage is the fact that your final game is the last game of the group, so actually you may be in a situation where you know exactly what you need to do to get through on net run rate?

JOS BUTTLER: Yeah, it could be a small advantage, but to make use of that, of course, we need to win the game against New Zealand. We'll travel up to Brisbane, everyone's rested and ready to go. There's a lot of frustration as well from the last game. People want to right that performance. So we'll train well and look forward to a tough challenge against New Zealand.

Q. After the Ireland game, you said there was big positive that there was another game in 48 hours allows you to turn that momentum around. Is it frustrating that that opportunity now is gone, and you've now got a bit of a big gap?

JOS BUTTLER: Not necessarily. I think it probably worked well both ways in our favour. Whether we had a bit of time to digest it and let it hurt and sort of deal with it and come past it. Of course this was a huge occasion and needed your full focus and attention, so you would have moved on very quickly into tonight from the disappointing defeat against Ireland.

Now we have a few days. If people need to deal with it more, you can deal with that. There's excitement to get back on the field. There's a lot of everyone wants to play cricket, and talented guys on our team want to get out there and showcase the best of their abilities.

We'll have to wait until the game now against New Zealand.

Q. I guess when the rain stopped and they were working on the pitch and the possibility was still there of some play, was the idea of a five overs a side kind of shootout, was that a nightmare scenario where one of these two great sides would essentially be knocked out of the tournament by that kind of lottery, and were you seriously concerned that was going to happen?

JOS BUTTLER: Look, we know it can happen, a five over match in T20 cricket. Is it ideal? Absolutely not. As I said before, you want to play full games of cricket not affected by the weather, but that's part and parcel of our game.

As I said before, that's what makes it unique. That's what makes it great. It adds drama. And as well, if we ended up playing a five over game, we would have had to adapt, make decisions, pick a team based on a five over match and try to win that.

Q. Jos, we've had three games in a row washed out here in Melbourne. And Afghanistan have had two games washed out. Is there a point in which the integrity of the tournament is affected? Do the players discuss this amongst themselves, we could through to the semis or we're knocked out through no fault of our own?

JOS BUTTLER: It's tough, isn't it? You mentioned Afghanistan now had two games washed out in a tournament where you potentially only play five matches. Yeah, I think that it's naturally frustrating for all of us if that happens.

Is there something you could look at -- whether you have to elongate the tournament too much. Obviously there's a period before this next round of games which we're into now, which is part of the tournament which makes it longer.

I'm not sure exactly, to be honest, what the perfect sort of format is. It's quite a ruthless format the way it is, which is fine. I think we all know that and accept that.

But, of course, if you don't have games, multiple games affected by weather, it certainly doesn't give you a true reflection maybe as to how the tournament, you'd hope, from players, organisers, fans want the tournament to turn out.