26 October - Bengaluru - England Captain Jos Buttler post-match press conference
[Reporter:]
It's another big defeat. It's got to be getting hard to take at this point, is it?
[Jos Buttler:]
Yeah, obviously. Incredibly disappointing, incredibly frustrating. Yeah, like you say, we're not just losing, we're losing by a long way and playing a long way short of our best. So, absolutely, huge disappointment.
[Reporter:]
Presumably, you've demanded a big response from the guys and we've heard various in the squad saying they're really desperate to put things right and put things back on track and again you've used 33 overs and 25 overs of the 50 in each innings, something's not working, is it?
[Jos Buttler:]
Yeah, that much is obvious - it's never for a lack of effort, it's never for a lack of hard work or preparation. Look around the room. It's not a lack of talent. A lot are experienced guys who are fantastic cricketers. So absolutely, it's a huge frustration. This tournament's gone nowhere near the way we wanted to. It's been a huge disappointment. If there was one golden egg that we were missing, then you'd hope to see that. But there is no secret, I don't think. There's no one else who can score your own runs or take your own wickets. That comes from the start, from the captain at the front. I've been a long way short of my best. As a leader, you want to lead through your own performance and I've not been able to do that.
[Reporter:]
I know you can play the numbers and try and come up with ways and means but are England out of this tournament now?
[Jos Buttler:]
It certainly looks that way and that's incredibly disappointing. You get on the plane to come to India and we're in a really good position as a team. Everything looking like it's going to plan and it's just not worked at all.
[Reporter:]
I'm probably not alone in saying that how this tournament's gone has been a shock to all of us. I'm guessing you guys must be in a bit of shock as well, given what's happened over the last couple of weeks.
[Jos Buttler:]
Yeah, absolutely. We're a really good team, done a lot of really good things in the recent past in white ball cricket, 50-over cricket. As I said - get on the plane with high hopes and a lot of confidence and belief that we can challenge for the title. So, to be sat here now with the three weeks that I've been is a shock. It's a shock to everyone. I'll walk back in the dressing room after this and look at the players sat there and think how we found ourselves in this position with the talent and the skill that's in the room. But it is the position we're in, it's the reality of what's happened over the last three weeks and that's a huge low point.
[Reporter:]
Do performances like today, do they make you question your own position?
[Jos Buttler:]
Yeah, I think you're always questioning as captain, you know, how you can get the best out of players, how you can get the team moving in the right direction. I certainly have a lot of confidence and belief in myself as a leader and captain and first and foremost as a player, but if you're asking if I should still be captaining the team that's a question for the guys above me.
[Reporter:]
You're determined in your own mind that you can turn things around with this team and you're the right man to lead England in the future?
[Jos Buttler:]
Yeah
[Reporter:]
Sri Lanka included Angelo Mathews for this game. Do you think that inclusion of Angelo Matthews changed the game this time?
[Jos Buttler:]
Not completely. He obviously had a really good game. Sri Lanka played really well, completely outplayed us and there was a number of their players who played really well.
[Reporter:]
Winning the toss and you were all out for 156, What was your mind after all out for just 156 on this Bangalore wicket?
[Jos Buttler:]
Yeah, disappointment.
[Reporter:]
You were saying there's not a lack of various things, talent, hard work, all that sort of stuff. Can you put a finger on what is lacking?
[Jos Buttler:]
Performance is the obvious thing. A lot of us, I've seen it myself, not performing to the level you expect of yourself or demand of yourself as an individual. So, there is no golden bullet that is that one thing that's - if we do this then everything's right again. We're just not performing to the level that we expect of ourselves, that we need to, to compete and play our best.
[Reporter:]
You talk about the shock and the dressing room down there right now. Next up you face India, who obviously have been the tournament front runners. What do you go and say to those players now that it looks like you're out? What do you do?
[Jos Buttler:]
I think whoever we play next, we want to focus on ourselves as individuals and as a team. Absolutely, you keep asking questions to try and find out what the problems are and how we can fix them. And there's a hell of a lot of pride. There's a lot of guys who are disappointed with the way they've played. I was speaking more absolutely for myself. You feel that as much as captain and as individually. You want to perform close to your best. And even though whatever happens from here on in in the tournament, whoever we play, we want to play good, hard games of cricket and play well and get back to playing the way we know we can. It looks like it could it could need a few miracles that we'd have to win every game and things go our way to progress further in this tournament, but for the games that we have left, we want to play the cricket we know we can play.
[Reporter:]
One of the, I guess, ways that the players have been talking over the course of the tournament and even leading into it is that you've been there, done it before, you know what you're doing, you've had to win every game before, it'll be all right on the night because of the guys that you've got. Is this kind of a lesson that actually it takes more than just having done it before?
[Jos Buttler:]
Yeah, I think in any sport or anything, you can't protect anything or rely on the past, you have to go and create something new every time. We know that as players, we touch on experience and things, having banked stuff before, but something we spoke about a lot as a team, that you have to go and create it again. You can't rest on your laurels or try and protect something, try, and protect an image or protect something as a team. And that's why, the very beginning of the tournament, I said, we weren’t here to try and defend our title. We're here to start something new and try and win something. Obviously, we're falling a long way short of that at the minute, but as players we certainly didn't take anything for granted or just think it would be all right on the night. You don't get to the level like this by thinking like that.
[Reporter:]
Do you think you've been set up to fail by the schedule and the other things above you?
[Jos Buttler:]
No, I don't. No, as players, the schedules are the schedules, and we've got a lot of things in our favour. We've got fantastic support from the coaches within the environment. We get fantastic support from our fans as a country, and we've let them all down. It's been a really tough few weeks, incredibly disappointing, as you say, a shock to perform the way we have with the team that we do have. So, I don't think there's any blame elsewhere apart from ourselves. And as captain, you sort of feel that the most.