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Veteran batter Jos Buttler has stepped down from England’s captaincy role after the side failed to secure a semifinal spot of the 2025 Champions Trophy. Buttler revealed his decision in a press conference on the eve of their final game against South Africa, where he was seated with head coach Brendon McCullum.
After winning the 2022 T20 World Cup under Buttler, England’s performance have regressed in the next three ICC events, nor they have done well to qualify for the World Test Championship final. They faced a group stage exit in the 2023 ODI World Cup, lost the semifinal game in 2024 T20 World Cup and are already out of the race to the top four in the ongoing Champions Trophy.
England faced off against their arch-rivals England in their first game of the showpiece event. Ben Duckett’s (165) knock lifted the team’s score to a mammoth 351. However, Josh Inglis (120*) played a spectacular innings to seal the chase for Australia.
In their next game against Afghanistan, England went on to concede 325, as Ibrahim Zadran (177) registered the best knock in the Champions Trophy history. Although, Joe Root scored a century, the other batters crumbled under pressure, and England lost the game by eight runs.
As a result, they were eliminated from the tournament, before their final group clash against the Proteas. In terms of personal form, Jos Buttler could score only 61 runs in two games, failing to convert his starts into a big knock.
In his official statement, Buttler expressed his disappointment at failing to bring laurels for England in the last few ICC events. The 34-year-old hoped that someone else could fill the captain’s shoes perfectly.
“It’s the right decision for me, it’s the right decision for the team and hopefully somebody else who can come in and work closely alongside Baz [Brendon McCullum] to take the team back to where it needs to be,” Jos Buttler said in a press conference on Friday (February 28).
“Yeah, I think it’s quite clear that this tournament was going to be important results-wise for my captaincy and obviously two losses and being out of the tournament with a bit of a hangover of some tournaments before, I think I just probably reached the end of the road for me and my captaincy, which is a shame,” Buttler added.
Brendon McCullum shares his thoughts on Jos Buttler’s resignation
England head coach Brendon McCullum was interviewed by Sky Sports following Jos Buttler’s decision to step down from the leadership role. As per McCullum, Buttler made the right decision, and hoped to see the star batter end his career on a high.
“I think he’s done the selfless thing, giving the opportunity to someone else. But, I also think he’s copped a lot of criticism throughout the last little period of his captaincy career. But, he is a World Cup-winning captain, and I am a firm believer that sometimes your impact you have on people is not necessarily felt under your own leadership.”
“It’s an opportunity to look at ways that we can utilize him even more obviously. We wanted to take a little bit of burden off him and now you can probably look to load him up a little bit with some opportunities so that he finishes his career as a player with the most significant impact he can make,” he added.
Notably, Jos Buttler led England in a total of 94 games (50 T20Is + 44 ODIs) and tasted success in only 44 games.
