Jos Buttler and Brendon McCullum sat down to speak to the media following Buttler's decision to stand down as England captain.
England Men's white ball captain Jos Buttler and Head Coach Brendon McCullum sat down to speak to the media ahead of our final 2025 ICC Champions Trophy fixture against South Africa. The press conference followed the announcement that Buttler is to stand down as white-ball captain on Saturday.
Jos Buttler on what prompted him to make this decision...
I think it was quite clear that this tournament was going to be important results-wise. For my captaincy and obviously two losses in being out of the tournament, with a bit of a hangover from tournaments before. I think that has probably reached the end of the road for me and my captaincy, which is a shame. I'm sad about that and obviously with Brendon coming in only recently, I was really excited to work closely alongside him. I had hoped for a very quick turnaround and take the team forward, but it's not quite worked out that way. It just feels like it's the right time for me and also for the team to have a change.
on if there is some relief after making the announcement...
Maybe in time it will be. I think the driving emotions are still sadness and disappointment, but I'm sure in time that will pass and I can get back to really enjoying my cricket. I'll also be able to reflect on what an immense honour it is to captain your country and all the special things that come with that.
on if he will still play ODI cricket for England...
Yeah, I'll still be available, so I'll see what the coach wants to do there.
Brendon McCullum on who will captain the team tomorrrow...
Jos is going to captain tomorrow, so his final game as captain and we'll hopefully put on a good show to send him off from his captaincy journey. I want to say I feel incredibly sad for Jos. We've all seen over the last couple of years how much he's invested in captaining his country and trying to get the best out of those guys around him. Don't forget that he won a World Cup only a couple of years ago and that can never be taken away from him. He's done a significant job, often without best players available and often around different structures as well. It's incredibly unselfish from Jos to step aside and to leave the post for someone else. He's still a huge player for us moving forward and I'm sure we'll look at ways we can get the best out of him in terms of his role, so he can have an excellent impact as well. It's probably come a little bit quicker than we would have expected.
on how McCullum was told...
I had a bit of an inkling after the game to be honest. Jos texted me last night and said 'Can we catch up boss?' So I went to his room and he let me know and obviously I still had a bit of an inkling so I had a bit of time to process it. My first reaction was going to tell him that and I'm going to carry on. But then you start thinking about it and you see how involved he's been trying to get the best out of these players. You look at what's right for Joss and first and foremost I care about him as a mate. As a coach you look at what's right too. It's incredibly selfless from Joss to have made this call and I want us to celebrate what he's been able to achieve. I said to the boys tonight in the team room, sometimes it's not necessarily the time that you're in the post and the results that you get during that time. Sometimes the impact you have on their leadership positions can be felt after you've left the post and I'm sure that'll be the case. Joe Root was a classic example of that with the Test game. He was able to at least hold the fort to a degree under incredibly trying circumstances. And then the uplift of performance. When he took over I saw the fire from that and hopefully it'll be the same across all teams when we decide on who that person is going to be.
on having your best players available for white ball selection...
Yeah, I think so and that's something that Keysy, myself and us at ECB are trying to ensure is that we give every format the most amount of attention as well as we possibly can. It's a tricky balancing act at times, right? But I look back even on these most recent series we'd argue that you could rest some players for some Test series and try and balance things out across formats. But thankfully the schedule is easing a little bit. If we look at what's coming I think we only play 10 Test matches this year which is significantly reduced from previously, so there's an opportunity to be able to play guys who might normally have been rested for ODI cricket or T20 cricket because we're focusing onTests to now be able to play them across formats too. Still there's a lot to work out but I'm hopeful that with some shrewd planning and a bit of an understanding of what our player pool looks like we'll be able to make sure that we can get it right across all formats. Because that's ultimately what the people that follow this team deserve, right? The fans of England, all those that call England their team and they support the world of cricket across all formats deserve to see the results improve from where they are at the moment and that's certainly our focus.
on having a white ball vice-captain...
Yeah, we're just going to have to wait now. It's all pretty normal, right? It's only less than 24 hours old so we've got a bit of time after tomorrow's game before we start to make some decisions and start to work out who the right person is going to be and what support they need and the structures we need to ensure are in place to be able to get the very best out of them and ultimately get the best results for the team. There's some really good leaders that have developed, again, that's the mark of Jos' captaincy bringing on other leaders within the group. They're not necessarily seasoned players but they're young guys who have got good cricketing knowledge and he's encouraged them to learn and develop as leaders. So there are some really good options playing around and I'm sure that when we start, when we see it all, we're just going to make sure we're giving the right support so that we can improve our performances.
on the time frame for picking a new captain...
Give us a couple of weeks to work things out and sort of digest what's unfolding for you to work out. We've got, what, two months or so before the Test against Zimbabwe and then into the white ball series against Western Indies. So there is a bit of time to be able to work that out and we're going to make sure as well, Keysy and myself will get together and those at the ECB which I've seen have a hand in things as well and just make sure that we decide it feels right and we give them the most fair support. I think if we look at this series, this tournament, sorry to touch on this, we've had our opportunities in this tournament and we've played some okay cricket. We've had opportunities in both games which we could have won and maybe we're sitting here and we're talking about something slightly different. But I do genuinely think that we've got immense talent that sits within English cricket across all forms of the game. It's our job to make sure that we get that talent in the right place and make sure we're making the right decisions around that. Probably the single greatest thing for us which I've felt I guess since jumping into the white ball job is that these guys are too hard on themselves. They've got immense talent, they're just desperate to want to perform and it's actually stifled the ability of us to be able to get the performance involved because they care too much.They're just desperate to want to perform for England, want to do right by all those who support the team, all those who support them and until we get to that stage where we're able to still handle walking out there and playing without wearing defeat or wearing disappointment so heavily then we're always going to stifle ourselves. So that's the job over the next little while. I feel like we've got there to a degree with the Test stuff and hence we've been okay with results but I think if we can get that into this group of talented players in white ball cricket then we'll be able to see our best option and that's something that we'll be looking to try and do in the next little while. It'd be nice if we started half-decently tomorrow and give ourselves a chance to feel what it's like when you play with a little less pressure on you.
