England in ODIs under Buttler: a failed attempt at Morgan's prototype
Different batting line-ups, lack of impact from second spinner, shorter lengths from quicks, and other factors which defined Buttler's era
Shubh Agarwal
03-Mar-2025
What will Jos Buttler's captaincy era be remembered for? • Sameer Ali/Getty Images
When Jos Buttler took over England's full-time ODI captaincy from Eoin Morgan in July 2022, the idea would have been to continue with the methods that had transformed England's white-ball cricket. What transpired, though, was quite different.
After crashing out in the group stages of the 2015 World Cup, England won 69.9% of their completed ODIs under Morgan. That run included winning the 2019 World Cup. For better understanding, that time period will be referred to as "Morgan's era" in this piece.
Meanwhile, under Buttler's full-time captaincy, England's win percentage nearly halved to 35.6%. The batting fell off a cliff, from averaging 41.50 under Morgan, the second-best in his era, to 30.10, the third-lowest among Full Member teams. The bowling average and economy rates shot up too.
Under Buttler, England even had the lowest batting average (28.46) among the 12 Full Members when playing aggressive strokes. They lost the most wickets on attacking shots (241), while their strike rate (253.08) was eighth on the list.
During Morgan's captaincy until the 2019 World Cup, England scored 4.7 boundaries per wicket. Under Buttler, they lost a wicket every 3.4 boundaries.
The personnel also changed between Morgan and Buttler's sides. Among the main core, England replaced Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow with Phil Salt and Ben Duckett, who bat in similar vein. Morgan and Ben Stokes, meanwhile, were replaced by Harry Brook and Liam Livingstone, both more attacking batters than their predecessors. Stokes did play 12 ODIs under Buttler since July 2022, but he was wasn't a regular member of the side. In the Morgan era defined above, though, Stokes played 66 ODIs.
Meanwhile, Buttler himself, and Joe Root, were common across both core teams.
Under Morgan, Root played 89 out of England's 98 ODIs. Under Buttler, Root featured in only 25 out of 47 fixtures. Root was the highest scorer for England in the Morgan era, and also had the best average (58.75).
Overall, barring Duckett, no other England batter, including Buttler, has been able to match the level of their predecessor, thus downgrading their batting numbers. And barring Root and Buttler, each of the aforementioned batters in the Buttler era was dismissed 50% more times while playing an aggressive stroke.