Buttler’s service in ODIs spoiled by injuries and overstuffed schedule

Welcome to The Spin, the Guardian’s weekly (and free) cricket newsletter. Here’s an extract from this week’s edition. To receive the full version every Wednesday, just pop your email in below:

One day a book will be written about the crazy world of cricket administration in the early 21st century. A fair chunk of it will be devoted to the domestic scene in England, where the men in suits seriously expect fans to follow four different formats at the same time – and the poor old players are like the staff of a 24-hour supermarket.

One chapter could home in on a single month in the life of England’s players: July 2022. A month when they were required to play a deciding Test against one of cricket’s superpowers, India, followed by four white-ball series in 25 days. A series a week! Lunacy, thy name is ECB.

An overstuffed schedule is like long Covid, a malaise with tentacles. This particular idiocy – not all the board’s fault, as it was partly a knock-on from India flouncing out of that fifth Test last year – led Ben Stokes to retire from 50-over internationals. The man who did most to win the World Cup for England, after Eoin Morgan, won’t be there to defend it.

It also gave Jos Buttler a nightmare start as England’s white-ball captain following Morgan’s abrupt retirement. Those four series in 25 days were Buttler’s first four as official captain. The thing about a baptism of fire is that you only have to face it once. Buttler – along with Matthew Mott, the new coach, who had only come up against the Netherlands – had to get through four of them. No wonder he lost three series and drew the other one.

In a tight corner like that, you need your big guns firing. Buttler had to manage without England’s top four one-day