Discarded by England, Buttler has been a revelation in the latest iteration of a successful tournament that the English game has long tried, and failed, to emulate
Jos Buttler stands outside a hotel room door bouncing a ball on his bat. Trent Boult opens the door carrying a guitar, which he strums as they stroll off together. Buttler plays a game where the object is to throw nuts and berries into your partner’s mouth, Buttler cradling the baby-faced left-handed opener Yashasvi Jaiswal in his arms and saying: “Yes, yes, get in there mate,” with a surprising degree of tenderness.
Buttler sits on a stool as Ravichandran Ashwin describes his earliest memory of cricket: an enormous tree where, as a very young child, he was dropped off alone with his kitbag from a motorbike driven by his father, a tree he still revisits when he can.
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