In Salt and Buttler, England may have an unbeatable opening recipe for the T20 World Cup

There is one area in which England's T20 team set the benchmark for the rest of the world.

For all of Abhishek Sharma's record-breaking hitting, India have spent the last 18 months trying to find him a partner, and look set to make a last-minute change from Sanju Samson to Ishan Kishan on the eve of the T20 World Cup. Afghanistan's Ibrahim Zadran and Rahmanullah Gurbaz are remarkably consistent, while plenty of opening pairs - Travis Head and Mitchell Marsh, say, or Quinton de Kock and Aiden Markram - can be hugely destructive on their day.

But in Phil Salt and Jos Buttler, England have an opening partnership which combines both of those traits - and has the record to prove it.

They have scored 1132 runs across just 23 partnerships in T20Is, an average stand of 51.45, all while scoring at 10.74 runs per over. No opening pair in T20I history that has batted together as often can better them on both average and scoring rate.

Barely six months ago, there was some doubt as to whether either man would open the batting in this edition of the T20 World Cup, let alone both. After the 2024 World Cup, Buttler shifted down to No. 3 for 12 consecutive T20Is, and also batted there for Gujarat Titans in the IPL, with Will Jacks and Ben Duckett both given opportunities to partner Salt at the top of the order for England.

Salt's decision to miss a long-forgotten bilateral series against West Indies on paternity leave in June was entirely understandable, but raised some eyebrows in the conservative world of English cricket, given that he had flown back to India to play in - and win - the IPL final straight after his son's birth.

Salt had also been dropped from England's ODI team and replaced by Jamie Smith at the top of the order at a time when Brendon McCullum was pushing for greater convergence across formats, and had no reassurances about his place. But when Duckett and Smith were rested for a series against South Africa at the end of a long summer, Salt and Buttler were reunited.

After a false start in a rain-shortened thrash, they made an unanswerable case to be reinstated permanently in their first full innings back. On a heady Friday night in Manchester, Salt and Buttler belted South Africa for 126 in just 7.5 overs. After Buttler made 83 off 30 balls, Salt pressed on to finish unbeaten on 141 in 60, and England became the first team to score 300 in a T20I between two ICC Full Members.

It followed a familiar template for Salt and Buttler's partnership, albeit one accelerated by a rock-hard pitch and a half-strength attack: Salt hit the first three balls of the innings for four, and the sixth for six, to get England off to a flying start, giving Buttler the chance to play in his slipstream.

"I've batted with Salty a lot," Buttler said on his For The Love Of Cricket podcast last year. "We've had a good partnership. We bounce off each other nicely. He is a great partner to have because you can tuck in behind him… He always comes out with incredible intent. One of his super-strengths is how much he goes for it from ball one."

"We've got pretty set roles," Salt said after that innings. "It's my job to get us off to as good a start as possible, and give Jos the opportunity to take a couple of balls because when he does, he goes on and gets a match-winning score a lot of the time - a lot more than anyone else."

Salt tends to outpace Buttler early on: when they have opened together, Salt has outscored Buttler in the first ten balls of their respective innings, and in the powerplay in aggregate. They have combined for ten partnerships worth 50 or more, and Salt has scored more runs than Buttler in eight of those.

His early aggression has liberated Buttler to play at his own tempo, as the most experienced batter in a relatively young England line-up. Buttler may be just past his peak, but at 35, and with nearly 500 T20 appearances across a storied career as both finisher and opener, there are few scenarios that he has not seen first-hand.

Salt has played more than 300 T20s himself, and their experience as a combination means that they have a strong understanding of each other's games. In total, they have batted together 68 times in short-form cricket for England, Lancashire and Manchester Originals across the last five years, including 17 second-wicket stands.

"We don't often need to communicate out there, but when he needs to get me on [strike], it just happens, and when I need to get him on, there's no ego or anything like that. We just do it," Salt said last year. "I think that's a massive part of having a good opening partnership."

Assuming they finish in the top two of their initial group, which features West Indies, Scotland, Nepal and Italy, England will play their Super 8s games in Sri Lanka. But Salt and Buttler's extensive experience of Indian conditions at the IPL should come in useful if they reach the semi-finals and final, which they would play in India.

The T20 playbook suggests that left-arm fingerspin should be a good option to two right-hand openers, but Salt has improved markedly against it after being targeted early in his career, primarily through opening up the off side much more.

Instead, new-ball swing is generally seen as the best option to shut them down: Buttler has historically been vulnerable to inswing from wide on the crease, while Salt has struggled against a handful of left-arm seamers, including India's Arshdeep Singh. But in truth, they are both such complete players that there is no golden bullet that is proven to stop them.

The biggest question heading into this World Cup is whether any team has the tools to beat India - the defending champions, hosts and favourites - in a knockout match. England did so in the 2022 semi-finals, when Buttler and Alex Hales blew them away in Adelaide; a similar performance from Salt and Buttler is their best chance of a repeat three-and-a-half years on.