England won the 1st game of the Super 10 in the 2016 ICC World Twenty20 Cup on 18th March against South Africa and they did so in style! Speaking about the victory, Jos Buttler opened up about his experience in the World Cup thus far, by sharing what’s required to win in a competitive tournament.

The young wicketkeeper-batsman from England revealed how his team beat the Proteas by chasing down a massive score of 230 runs – the highest successful run chase by a side in a Twenty20 World Cup!

A confident Jos Buttler spoke about his side’s emphatic performance: “I think with the bat we were looking to score par with 200 and really needed that someone to play the big innings to help kick us on towards that 200 mark which we probably needed out there last night.”

He assured everyone that there are plenty of good things to be done by English Cricket and that they have to park the game that’s gone now. To advance in this tournament, England will need to focus all their energy on the next game. “You come to these tournaments and they’re hard games, especially the format. To go straight to the semi-finals, you’ve got to win games and that’s tournament cricket. I think if we lose 5 games in a row and win 1 in the World Cup, we’ll be happy with that.”

Taking each challenge as it comes, one needs to do the same things, because in the end, it’s still a game of Cricket! He noted: “You have the same emotions, the same thought processes, but obviously just the outcome could potentially be more defining on your tournament, but it doesn’t change the game. It’s still 20 overs, it’s still 20 yards and we’ve got to focus on that, learn from what happened last night.”

It stands true to the conditions they batted in and the way they tackled the wicket. To play in the scenic Dharamshala stadium feels like playing in the heavens. You can only imagine that it must be tough to focus on the game as you try to improve the areas that you’ve to improve upon, because playing against good teams, you’ve got to be right up there on your game to win matches in the World Cup.

Jos revealed that it’s all about executing plans: “You can have the best laid plans in the world but if you don’t do it then it’s irrelevant and so against these top players, you’ve to execute your skill. Plans are almost irrelevant if you can bowl six yorkers in a row and whoever you bowl them at, then you’re pretty good at (it). It’s about being able to deliver a skill to that plan under pressure. You can have as many plans as you like, especially as guys get going but if you can’t execute the skill to do that then you’re stuffed anyways.”

On the competition from the rest of the teams in Group 1, he observed that there was nothing new that they hadn’t already faced before. “We’ve obviously seen what they’re capable of and played against them so there’s nothing new in the side but we’ve got to play very well. I’ve had a look at them and they’ve had a good look at us, so there’s going to be no surprises.”

Come match day, all it’s going to take is one, two or three of these players to really stand up and make a match winning contributions to see their side through to the next round!