Matthew Mott makes plea for patience after England’s white ball woe summer

Matthew Mott has called for patience after England ended a difficult summer without a home white-ball series win but has warned his underperforming stars places are up for grabs ahead of this winter’s T20 World Cup.

A humbling 90-run loss to South Africa at the Ageas Bowl on Sunday, after being dismissed for 101 in response to the tourists’ 191 for five, saw the hosts conclude a challenging month on and off the field with a new low.

It was England’s joint-heaviest defeat in T20 cricket, which is far from ideal preparation ahead of October’s World Cup in Australia.

New white ball head coach Mott has seen Eoin Morgan depart the international scene in shock fashion this summer and watched on as Ben Stokes retired from ODIs. That double whammy, coupled with humbling defeats to India in both limited-overs series in July, has contributed to this side’s previous invincibility quickly fading.

“I think there’s more time than you think, but what needs to happen in the short term is to be really honest about where the group’s at,” the Australian reflected with the World Cup two-and-a-half months away.

“A lot of people reflect back on the past about how great a team this is. This is a very different unit at the moment. We need to acknowledge that and make sure we live in the present and work on what we can get better at.

“I think Jos is really honest about where we need to go. I’ll be as honest as I can be and we need to just acknowledge this wasn’t a great performance and even throughout the summer there’s areas that we can really improve on.

“All we ask I suppose is a little bit of patience and a bit of perspective that we’ve got some building to do.”

Mott admitted Buttler had faced a baptism of fire to his tenure after