Jos Buttler was disappointed after England slumped to a nine-wicket defeat at the hands of Tom Latham’s New Zealand in the opening match of World Cup 2023. On Thursday, October 6, the Three Lions looked completely hapless as the Kiwis chased down a target of 283 with as many as 82 balls left in their innings.
England started well as Sam Curran got the wicket of Will Young. But from there on, Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra put on an unbeaten 273-run stand for the second wicket to take the Black Caps past the finishing line.
Buttler did not hesitate in admitting that England were completely outplayed. However, he also said that the Brits would not let the defeat affect them with eight matches still left in the league stage.
“Yeah, disappointed. Completely outplayed. But the first thing that springs to mind is whether you do lose by a run or a defeat like that, it is one loss at the start of a very long tournament. So, that’s something that I’d be encouraging everyone to remember,” Buttler said in the post-match press conference.
“It’s certainly a tough loss to take we were outplayed but you know we’ve got a lot of experience in the room – guys who’ve been through lots of things and faced defeats like that before. So, just as we had won the game, we don’t get too high and we don’t get too low when we lose as well,” he stated.
After being put in to bat first, England lost wickets at regular intervals, but somehow managed to score 282 for the loss of nine wickets. Adil Rashid and Mark Wood added 30 runs for the last wicket. Buttler said that England would have given New Zealand some challenge had they got a score in the range of 320-330.
“I think we were short of runs with the bat. I think the wicket probably did get better under the lights, but I think we were a long way short of our best with the bat and still made 280.
“So, we’re probably looking at a score of 320, 330 which would have allowed us to build some kind of pressure and stuff. But I thought the margin for error was very small on that wicket and two batters who played exceptional innings,” Buttler added.
