Jos Buttler believes Brendon McCullum’s removal as Test coach may have boosted England’s World Cup chances, with the New Zealander now “all in” on lifting the trophy next winter.
McCullum was relieved of his red-ball duties in July, with Stephen Fleming eventually named as his successor, but remained in charge of a limited-overs set-up that ended the summer with a record of 11 wins and two defeats.
That included ODI series wins over India and Sri Lanka, raising England’s stock in a format that has seen them decline since they became world champions in 2019.
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Buttler, who captained the team in their ill-fated 2023 title defence, thinks the split coaching model has allowed McCullum to throw all his energy towards next year’s tournament in southern Africa.
“He’s only got one focus now and that is the white ball,” Buttler said on his For the Love of Cricket podcast.
“It’s not that he couldn’t do everything, because he could, but your time is more spread and you’ve got more to think about with the Test team as well.
“Now he can focus solely on white-ball cricket – T20, yes, but mainly ODI cricket with that World Cup on the horizon. It seems like Baz is naturally all in on, ‘how do I win this World Cup with this team?’
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“I think he can sort of see that World Cup is not that far away. It’s a real target, now his remit has changed from four months ago being in charge of everything to, ‘right, I can really nail down on this’. He’s just got more time and more focus on that.
“ODI cricket for England has not been consistently great for a couple of years, so there’s some nice growth to go on that and this summer’s been a really good start.”
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Buttler is currently sidelined with a hamstring injury and has already been ruled out for the forthcoming tri-series tour of Pakistan.
He is also a doubt for the November trip to Australia, meaning the team’s most experienced one-day player could miss as many as eight ODIs and a significant chunk of the pre-World Cup preparations.
“I’ve had a scan and I’m waiting to see the specialist. Then we’ll know what the next steps are,” he said.
“The unknown is often the tough part. Any cricketer just wants a physio or a doctor to tell you, ‘on this date you’ll be back playing cricket’. Unfortunately, they can’t do that just yet.”