England picks Jos Buttler as captain of T20 and ODI teams

London, June 30

Jos Buttler was promoted to England’s new white-ball captain on Thursday and took immediate charge of the Twenty20 and one-day international cricket teams.

Vice-captain since 2015, the 31-year-old Buttler has deputised for Eoin Morgan on 14 occasions, including in the Netherlands last week after Morgan sat out with a groin injury.

Morgan announced his retirement from international cricket on Tuesday and the England and Wales Cricket Board wasted little time in confirming Buttler’s promotion.

Buttler will take charge of 12 games in July, with T20 and ODI series against India and South Africa.

The wicketkeeper-batter is a ferocious striker of the ball. He has played 151 ODI games for England, scoring 4,120 runs at an average of 41.20, including 10 hundreds and 21 fifties. In T20s, he has won 88 caps scoring 2,140 runs with an average of 34.51.

Buttler is one of three England cricketers — with Dawid Malan and Heather Knight — to have scored hundreds in all three formats of the game.

“It is a great honor to take over from Eoin, and the place he has left English white-ball cricket in is exciting, and I’m inspired for the challenges ahead,” Buttler said.

Morgan is credited with transforming England’s white-ball fortunes in 2015 with a bold, inventive approach. He led England to its first men’s Cricket World Cup title in 2019, and the top of the ODI and T20 rankings. AP