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Ramprakash admits Buttler red-ball plight
- Updated: November 23, 2016
Mark Ramprakash has warned against expecting too much of Jos Buttler if he is selected for the third Test against India.
While Ramprakash, the England batting coach, rated Buttler as one of the “top five batsmen in the world in one-day cricket,” he accepted that his lack of red-ball experience could compromise his chances of success.
Buttler is expected to replace Ben Duckett in the England side for the Test starting in Mohali on Saturday. But, if he does play, it will be just his second first-class game since he was dropped from the Test team in October 2015. He hasn’t scored a first-class half-century since May 2015 and a first-class century since June 2014.
Rampakash accepts that the situation “isn’t ideal” but, with Gary Ballance having been dropped having averaged six in the Bangladesh series and having only passed 15 once in seven Test innings, England are not flush with options. Buttler is highly regarded in the England set-up not just for his talent, but his leadership qualities; he captained the England ODI side in Bangladesh.
But while Trevor Bayliss, the England coach, has expressed a hope that Buttler will take the same positive approach he uses in white-ball cricket to Test cricket, Ramprakash fears that conditions in international limited-overs cricket – in particular the nature of pitches and the ball – are not reflective of the challenges likely to face Buttler in Tests. Batsmen in Test cricket are also far more likely to face a sustained challenge from the short ball.
“To me, Jos Buttler is in the top five batsmen in the world in one-day cricket,” Ramprakash said. “And that almost creates a problem with the amount of first-class cricket he can play. So, if Jos gets the nod we need to be understanding of that. He clearly has so much ability but through lack of opportunity it’s been hard for him to develop and I hope that people realise that and don’t set expectations too high because that’s the situation he’s in and we have to live with that.
“In the white-ball game you’re playing on flat wickets against a ball that …
