Jos Buttler will be promoted to an opening role for England‘s one-off Twenty20 against Australia at Edgbaston on Wednesday.
Buttler was a leading presence in the Indian Premier League earlier this year after being moved to the top of the order, equaling a record of five successive half-centuries in the competition.
He has usually batted in the middle-order in the sprint format with England although his highest T20 international score of 73 not out came as an opener – against Sri Lanka in 2016.
And Paul Farbrace, standing in for head coach Trevor Bayliss for this clash and the three T20s against India that follow, said of Buttler: “He will open tomorrow.
“You want to get your best strikers facing as many balls as possible. The form he’s in, the way he’s playing, it makes sense to get him at the top of the order.”
FINCH IN CHARGE
Meanwhile, Australia will be looking to put the ODI series whitewash behind them when they take the field under the captaincy of Aaron Finch.
Tim Paine is not a part of the T20 squad and Alex Carey will take up the role of wicketkeeper and vice-captain.
Australia are the No2 ranked T20 team and will hope for a much improved effort.
Alex Carey says Australia can bounce back from their one-day series defeat by England and will go into their standalone T20I at Edgbaston on Wednesday aiming to top the international T20 rankings.
Carey, who played in the final two ODIs of the series as a specialist batsmen, will take on both the wicketkeeping duties and the vice-captaincy under Aaron Finch for the match and said it was important for Australia to finish what has been a difficult tour of England with a win.
“Absolutely, losing 5-0 is not acceptable for the Australian cricket team,” Carey said earlier. “We don’t want that result ever again. Our T20 is going really well, we’re second in the world at the moment and we want to go one better. And we come up against Pakistan in a week’s time as well.”
