Jos Buttler encourages England to take attacking to ‘new level’ for India T20s

Just 48 hours after the last echoes of England’s victory cheers died out following their stunning Test win against India at Edgbaston a whirlwind international summer continues on Thursday with a fresh cast for the first of three Twenty20 internationals in four days against the same opponents. Same show, different cast.

Given the Test side’s transformation there might not be any particularly new tricks, and Jos Buttler prepared for his first match as full‑time white-ball captain with talk of pushing boundaries and exploring new levels that could almost have been lifted from any of Ben Stokes’s recent pronouncements.

“What they’re doing has been our style of cricket for quite a while now, so it will be much the same and, if anything, can we take it to new levels?” Buttler said. “That’s what we’ll always be challenging ourselves on. A big part of this team is not to set boundaries and not to have limitations. Are there areas we can keep pushing the limits?”

Buttler has certainly been pushing the limits of his own potential of late, top-scoring at the Indian Premier League this year and plundering 248 runs across two ODI innings in the Netherlands last month, while in nine T20I innings since the start of last summer he averages a heady 83.4.

“In terms of a place to take over from, if I’m not ready to take over now then I’d never be,” he said. “I think I’m in the best place I could ever be to become captain at this moment.”

It is a moment plump with potential, with a white-ball World Cup scheduled for this year and each of the next two and several explosive young players trying to force a way into an experienced and successful side. Even in the absence of first-choice starters such as Stokes, Jonny Bairstow, Jofra Archer and