Jos Buttler, England's regular wicketkeeper batter and captain, is open to leaving the role behind the stumps with him not getting younger and if that helps his captaincy too. Buttler, who has been out of action since the T20 World Cup, owing to a right calf injury, will miss the ODI series against England after being ruled out of the Hundred and the T20 series and was in conversation with his predecessor Eoin Morgan and Nick Knight during the washed out Manchester T20I.
Buttler, who has been retained as the white-ball captain despite England failing to defend both ODI and T20 World Cups in span of 12 months, said that if it helps in his captaincy, he would give up the gloves with Morgan giving example of Brendon McCullum, who fielded at mid-off during the latter part of his career.
"If I was playing in this T20 series, I was going to give up the gloves and commit to being at mid-off and seeing how that felt," Buttler said on Sky Sports during the third T20I between England and Australia on Sunday, September 15. "Baz [McCullum] stumbled across it with injury preventing him from keeping wicket but then he really enjoyed being next to the bowler at mid-off so that's something we can talk about. If that's something that will really help me in my captaincy then it's something that I am definitely open to.
"I am very open to those kinds of things. I just want what's best for the team and what's best for the team is going to be me being the best captain I can be. If I have to move from behind the wickets to do that, then so be it," Buttler added.
England named Harry Brook as the captain for the ODIs with Phil Salt or Jamie Smith likely to take the gloves. Buttler said that the team would make a call on the same in the coming days as they want to ensure role clarity for the younger players, especially like Smith, who has taken to the role easily in Test matches.
