England captain Jos Buttler has hit back at former Indian cricketer-turned-broadcaster Ravi Shastri for falsely claiming that England had just one training session on their horrid Indian tour, where they lost seven out of eight matches, including suffering a whitewash in the recently concluded ODI series. After going down (1-4) in the T20Is, England lost the three One-Dayers (on the trot), with the one in Ahmedabad (by 142 runs) being the latest.

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However, after the crushing defeat in the final ODI before the action moves to the ICC Champions Trophy (starting Feb 19 in Pakistan), Shastri accused England of having ‘just one training session’ throughout the series, which Buttler called untrue.

Though he had tight scheduling and excessive and longer travels as reasons (to defend) for his players not training enough ahead of the matches, Buttler said they trained plenty during the tour whilst maintaining a good team environment for the players to thrive and work on getting better.

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"I'm not sure that's quite true," Buttler replied to Shastri's accusation. 

"I think we've had a reasonably long tour, a few long travel days... there have been a couple of times we've not trained, but we've certainly done plenty of training throughout the tour. We obviously try to create a really good environment, but don't mistake that for a lazy environment or a lack of effort. The guys are desperate to perform, do well and improve,” he added.

India loss is not ‘concerning’

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England lost their fourth One-Day series since the last ODI World Cup (in 2023), where they got knocked out in the group stage, but Buttler feels that despite this result (0-3), they sit comfortably to take on the heavyweights in the first showpiece event of the year. 

Buttler complimented India for playing the right brand of cricket, feeling no shame in losing to a better team across two formats, but admitted England was far from being their best throughout.

"We want the results to build confidence and win games - that feels a lot better having won matches as opposed to losing. We're up against a good side in their own conditions, they're probably the benchmark in ODI cricket at the moment," Buttler said, seeing a silver lining in his team not playing to their potential yet.

"We've not played near our potential, we've had some moments in games, never enough to force results or look like winning games of cricket in the last three matches. But I think the fact we're not anywhere near our potential yet or playing individually or collectively where we know we can be gives us something to look forward to, believe we can get there and be a dangerous team in the Champions Trophy," Buttler continued. 

England is placed in Group B, alongside Australia, Afghanistan, and South Africa. 

(With inputs from agencies)