England captain Jos Buttler on Wednesday defended his team’s training schedule on the tour after former India coach Ravi Shastri criticised the visitors for not putting in the “hard yards”. England, who did not hold training sessions before the second and third ODIs at Cuttack and Ahmedabad, lost 0-3 in the ODIs after being drubbed 1-4 in the five-match T20I series. However, they had a training session ahead of the first ODI in Nagpur, even as Shastri touched upon England’s lack of sufficient training.
“From what I’ve heard, England have had just one net session this entire trip, if not any. If you’re not prepared to do the hard yards, you’re not going to improve,” Shastri said in commentary during the third ODI, which England won by 142 runs.
Buttler took a different view. “I’m not sure that’s quite true, to be honest. We had a reasonably long tour, a few long travel days. There’s been a couple of times we’ve not trained, but we’ve certainly done plenty of training throughout the tour,” Buttler told the media.
“We obviously try and create a really good environment, but don’t mistake that for a lazy environment or a lack of effort. The guys are desperate to perform and do well and improve,” Buttler added.
While England held a couple of training sessions before the tour began in Kolkata with the first T20I, they held one session each in Chennai and Rajkot before the second and third T20Is. But no sessions were held ahead of the fourth and fifth T20Is in Pune and Mumbai respectively.
Buttler said England did not do enough to capitalise on the moments they got throughout the tour. “It’s probably a bit of a similar theme from this series and the whole tour. We had a couple of moments in the game, but never enough to go on and force a result or win against a really good team,” he said.
Buttler hoped that their in-form opener Ben Duckett, who suffered a groin injury during the third ODI here, will be fit in time for the Champions Trophy starting on February 19.
“He’s obviously been playing really well and hopefully it’s not too bad. We’ll find out more, obviously, over the next couple of days, but it’s a little bit of time. Hopefully he’ll be okay,” he said.
“He’s played fantastically well all tour. He seems to keep getting better and better. (We are) really pleased with how he’s performing and he’s been great for us,” Buttler added.
Buttler said defeats to India have not dented England’s confidence.
“Not necessarily. Obviously, we want the results to build confidence and win games. That (would) feel a lot better sitting here and having won matches as opposed to losing. But look, we’re up against a good side in their own conditions. They’re probably the benchmark in ODI cricket at the moment,” he said.
“We’ve not played near our potential. We’ve had some moments in games, but never enough to force results or look like winning games of cricket in the last three matches.” “But the fact that we’re not anywhere near our potential yet or playing individually or collectively where we know we can be gives us something to look forward to and believe that we can get there and be a dangerous team in the Champions’ Trophy,” he said.
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