Jos Buttler, England now brace for the do-or-die

Defending champions England have gotten off to a horrid start in the ODI World Cup 2023. Led by Jos Buttler, the side has played in four World Cup games so far and has only managed to register one victory, which came against Bangladesh on October 10.

Their most recent loss came against South Africa, as the defending champions received a thumping. In the first innings, brilliant knocks by Reeza Hendricks, Rassie van der Dussen, and a century by Heinrich Klaasen saw South Africa post a total of 399 runs against the Jos Buttler-led side.

Chasing the target, England only managed to score 170 runs before they were bundled out and lost the game by 229 runs. Following the shock defeat, skipper Jos Buttler took centre stage and talked about how there is no more room for error left if the defending champions are looking to make it to the knockout stages of the ODI World Cup 2023.

"It certainly leaves us in a tough position. There's no room for error from here on in. That's going to be incredibly tough, but we'll sit down and go again. That's all you can do in this situation,” Buttler was quoted as saying by Cricbuzz. 

“Yeah, with complete honesty, I think it's obvious that we're not performing to our best. It's my job as captain and along with the rest of the team, to work out how we can get back to playing that brand of cricket and the style and not just only that, but sort of just playing to our potential and getting back to our best,” he added.

 We'll just have to dust ourselves down: Buttler

Furthermore, Buttler opined that the team cannot do much but keep at it and keep trying to give their best performance. The skipper stated that the best way to go would be to dust themselves off and go out to play again.

"So, it comes down to a lot of that. There are a few things here and there that we need to keep challenging ourselves on and working on, and in this situation that's all you can do. It certainly won't be anyone giving up or having those kind of thoughts. We'll just have to dust ourselves down and stick our chests out and go again,” Buttler said.