Joe Root is in the form of his life, rest of us need to step up: Jos Buttler

England’s wicket-keeper batsman Jos Buttler has stated that Joe Root is in the form of his life while he admitted that the rest of the players need to step up to support their captain.

Root has been the lone warrior for the hosts as the talisman has amassed 386 runs in two Test matches at an average of 128.66.

Root has scored the lion share of England’s runs as Jonny Bairstow has scored a solitary fifty for the hosts, barring the England skipper. In fact, the rest of the batsmen have scored a total of 513 runs in two Test matches at a paltry average of 13.86. Root scored 64 runs in the first innings of the opening Test and then played a free-flowing knock of 109 runs in the second dig and it played a key role for England in saving the opening Test.

Subsequently, the talisman scored an unbeaten knock of 180 runs in the first essay of the Lord’s Test and helped his team take a lead of 27 runs as England were able to post 391 runs after India scored 364 runs.

England is clearly lacking the experience in their batting unit and players like Jonny Bairstow and Jos Buttler will need to put their hand up for the team. The hosts have dropped Dom Sibley and they have included Dawid Malan for the third Test match.

Root has scored 754 runs in six Test matches against India in 2021 at an average of 68.54 with the help of three centuries, two of which have come in the ongoing series.

“I think it is obvious that the rest of us need to step up and give Joe Root more support. This year, in particular, he always bats well, but he seems to be in the form of his life,” Buttler said while replying to an ANI query during an interaction with select media organised by Sony Network.

“He has had an amazing start to the series and hopefully, that can continue and the rest of us can improve our game to give him more support. We certainly do not want to create more pressure on Joe’s shoulders. As a unit, we need to stand up to the level we can,” he added.

Buttler added England’s tactics on the final day of the Lord’s Test didn’t work out against Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami as the duo added a match-changing partnership of 89 runs.

“Yeah, potentially. Sometimes when you have a bowler who can bowl incredibly fast as Mark Wood does against the lower order, it can be to intimidate the lower-order batsmen. We thought it was a good option, obviously, it did not work for us and that was disappointing. But still, I think it can be a good tactic at times and we will try to get our tactics spot on going forward,” he said.

Buttler was also involved in a verbal battle against Jasprit Bumrah and Virat Kohli. The England wicket-keeper batsman added that Kohli is highly competitive and feels it is his pleasure to play against the Indian captain.

“Virat Kohli is an incredibly competitive guy, he loves the challenge and competition. To be honest, that is one of the pleasures of playing against him. It is a great battle, it tests you. It is a privilege really to be out there in that competition against him and his team. We enjoy that, we have really competitive guys in our team as well who are desperate to win and it adds to the picture,” he signed off.