England captain Jos Buttler has heaped high praise on Abhishek Sharma for smashing a whirlwind 54-ball 135 in India’s 150-run win in the fifth T20I in Mumbai, describing the record knock as one of the finest examples of “clean ball striking”.
Abhishek entered record books with the second fastest T20I century by an Indian batter off 37 balls and hit 13 sixes — the most in an innings for any player from the country, powering the hosts to 247 for nine.
“Yeah, (we are) obviously disappointed (with the result), they (India) played a fantastic batting innings. I think credit to Abhishek Sharma, I thought that’s as clean a ball striking as I’ve seen, I thought he played fantastically well,” Buttler told the media after India recorded their second biggest T20I win by runs on Sunday.
Buttler denied England were “shellshocked” from Abhishek’s onslaught on his bowlers but said there were only two options for his side — either to go boom or bust.
“We always sit down and think what more could we have done or how we could have stopped him, but some days I think you have to give a lot of credit to the opposition, I thought he played brilliantly well,” Buttler said.
“Shellshocked’s not quite the word, I think. It can be difficult sometimes when a player gets on a roll and they play as well as he did,” Buttler said.
“Looking back at the last IPL, him and Travis Head were the same at the top of the order for Sunrisers (Hyderabad) and obviously he’s brought that into India.”
“He (Abhishek) played a brilliant innings and sometimes you want to credit the opposition. You always think of what more could you do, how could we get him out, how could we slow him down and, but yeah, credit to us for, you know, sticking in there and fighting back and keeping them down to 240 after the start they got,” Buttler said.
The England captain acknowledged the pitch remained the same for his batters as the visitors were bowled out for 97 in 10.3 overs with Phil Salt scoring a 23-ball 55.
“I’ve played in a few games like this and it generally goes one of two ways, you either get actually somewhere near or you fall in a heap and today was that day,” he said.
“The way Phil Salt went out there and struck the ball, it was obviously a really good wicket, you needed someone to go with him and one or two guys to catch fire and that’s the way you’re going to chase that down.
“Like I said, you either get quite close in games like this and surprise yourselves or it doesn’t work but, no, we certainly won’t change the way we want to play. We need to, you know, keep backing that, be even more committed and you’re desperate to do well and execute that,” he said.
Buttler said he wouldn’t want England to change their style of play after a 1-4 series loss to India.
“We’ve had our moments actually in all the games bar the first one probably and today. We had moments in Chennai, Pune and obviously the game we won in Rajkot,” he said.
“As we get more experienced, more committed to the style we want to play and the nuances of the game of how we’re going to win those moments, then (we would) go on to win the match and win series,” he added.
Buttler said India spinner Varun Chakravarthy was “accurate” throughout this series in which the spinner took 14 wickets.
“He’s had a good series. He’s been very accurate in his subtle variations and he’s got a really good length, so he’s done well,” Buttler said.
