England and Australia washed out but Jos Buttler finds his groove

England came into their third game against Australia hoping for a whitewash, and ended up with a washout. The third and final rain interruption came with Australia’s innings 3.5 overs old, still seven balls away from the minimum required for this to constitute a match, but the fact there was no result does not mean there was no point.

Most obviously, England ended the night with spirits boosted but bodies fresh. They had faced 12 overs, a twice-interrupted, much-abbreviated innings from which very little was really learned. Apparently Jos Buttler is quite good. He ended the innings unbeaten on 65 off 41 balls, though he only really found top gear for a single Josh Hazlewood over, from which he thrashed three fours, a couple of twos and a six.

Perhaps the most notable moment of his innings came when he was not even on strike, and Mitchell Starc warned him that he was backing up a little eagerly. The topic of running-out the non-striker was resurrected when Deepti Sharma ran out England’s Charlie Dean in the final ODI between England Women and India last month, and could be a theme of this World Cup.

Buttler himself said recently that he would call back an opponent who fell victim to what has become known as a Mankad – even its name is controversial – on the basis that “no one wants to see them in the game because they always create such a talking point when it should be about the battle between bat and ball”, a position that risks encouraging England’s opponents to be carefree.

“I think if guys get a warning, then it’s fair game after that,” Aaron Finch said afterwards. “That would go for most teams, I assume. If you give a batter a warning, because you think they’re gaining a little bit too much ground before a ball’s