England's need for renewal offers Buttler a chance to come in from the cold

A penny for Jos Buttler's thoughts as he embarks on his seventh T20 World Cup campaign. At the age of 35, and just days after becoming the most-capped cricketer in England's history, "Grandpa" (as he is now known by his Gen Z team-mates) is locked and loaded for what could well be his last meaningful shot at an ICC global trophy.

That nickname may predate England's tour of New Zealand in October, but you can imagine Buttler taking a somewhat askance view of the antics that unfolded on that infamous trip. He's clearly not ready for his metaphorical pipe and slippers just yet, but nor is it likely that many of his 403-and-counting England appearances have been prefaced by confrontations with nightclub bouncers.

And yet, despite the swirl of controversy that continues to stalk his successor, Harry Brook, England's T20 World Cup squad has arrived in India in better-than-average shape. Or, perhaps, it is because of that controversy, for England would hardly be the first sports team in history to hunker down in the eye of the storm, and use that howl of external outrage to cultivate an us-against-the-world mentality.

Certainly, blocking out the noise has been a central tenet of Brendon McCullum's coaching philosophy throughout his three-and-a-half years in the England set-up, and to judge by his bullish comments in Pallekele this week, he's still utterly committed to the messaging and methods that fuelled the Bazball revolution.

All of which leaves Buttler, a grandee of England's original white-ball revolution, in a fascinating - and potentially campaign-defining - position. Not only is he one of the few men in this set-up who can truly claim to have seen it all before, he is also perhaps the most mindset-driven player of his generation, and therefore, the very best means to determine whether that fabled Baz effect has anything left to offer after such a bruising winter.

When Buttler is in his happy place, there are few more destructive sights in world cricket. When that thousand-yard stare sets in, however, and all the woes of the world descend to his shoulders - as was so visibly the case on his last trip to India for an ICC event, the 2023 World Cup - his game can shrink into itself, which in part explains his own rather wistful reflections last week, as he reiterated his regret at never quite getting to grips with Test cricket.

Such were the reasons why, at McCullum's unveiling as all-formats head coach in September 2024, he memorably made it his mission to cheer up his "miserable" then-captain. Within weeks, however, Buttler was more miserable still, as England's abject elimination from the Champions Trophy brought an end to their alliance before it had really begun.

In hindsight, England never stood a chance at that particular juncture of the team's all-formats evolution. Their crippling lack of familiarity with ODI rhythms was one thing - the ECB had abandoned all interest in 50-over cricket from the moment of their World Cup victory in 2019, meaning their 2023 title defence had been doomed long before the wheels came off mid-tournament.

But even after McCullum had extended his brief, England's four-square focus on Test cricket, ahead of ten defining Tests against India (at home) and Australia (away), meant that the white-ball aspect of his reign was hopelessly compromised from the outset. The mere fact of Brook's promotion - an "opportunity [that] has come slightly earlier than expected", as per Rob Key's distinctly underwhelming press release - was a case in point.

Brook's elevation was a defensive reflex from a management that, without a comparable authority figure such as Ben Stokes to turn to, was desperate not to give mixed messages to their most important rising star. If no-one else but Buttler was worthy of talking down to Brook within the white-ball set-up, then he'd have to do the talking-up himself. As he found out in Wellington, such positive reinforcement has its limits, though it still shouldn't require a doorman's clenched fist to reveal them.

And yet, the extraordinary thing about sport - and international cricket in particular - is that the narrative moves so quickly, there's never much time to dwell when you've hit rock-bottom. England's four-year Test focus was so emphatically torched by their Ashes loss that, for the first time since McCullum's tenure began in May 2022, the here-and-now of the T20 World Cup campaign is the only show that matters.

This, in turn, means that Buttler has his chance to come in from the cold. At long last, he is released from being the noble guardian of England's crumbling white-ball standards - a role he took on in Amstelveen in June 2022 following Eoin Morgan's abrupt retirement (and carried forward, lest we forget, to the T20 World Cup title later that same year) - and is back to being a main character once more, tasked with saving English cricket from its latest outbreak of existentialism.

With 81 runs at 27.00 and a strike-rate of 135, Buttler may not have been at the absolute peak of his powers during last week's 3-0 series win in Sri Lanka, but his focus was perhaps the more pertinent measure of his impact - perhaps best epitomised by his razor-sharp catch off Dunith Wellalage in that most recent match. If he maintains that level of output over an extended tournament run, he will overhaul Virat Kohli to become the leading run-scorer in T20 World Cup history, and at a significantly quicker strike-rate than any of his mighty peers.

His prolific partnership with Phil Salt is one of the most significant reasons to believe that England can mount a challenge, but so too is his status as an all-time great in an unexpectedly well-balanced squad. In Adil Rashid, Jofra Archer (and even the lesser-spotted Liam Dawson), the 2019 knowhow is represented across disciplines, while Sam Curran was the star of their 2022 title win, in which Salt and Brook also featured.

But, unlike the over-reliance on the tried-and-tested that sank their subsequent World Cup bids, there's enough new blood in England's ranks to believe their challenge will be energized this time around. It's not unlike the alchemy that inspired the Test squad to rise from the dead in 2022, when a core of generational greats was encouraged to stop moping and learn to love again, and the rest came along for the wildest of rides.

Quite apart from the chance to attack a global tournament with vigour at long, long last, it might just be the only way they can hope to change the national mood music. If he can help to pull that off, then Grandpa really will have earned his slippers.