"I wouldn't enjoy it if I knew I was only going to get to play T20 for England for six months every four years."
Sunday 25 February 2018 04:36, UK
Jos Buttler lauds T20Is, discusses how he can earn a Test recall, and welcomes back Ben Stokes to the England fold in his final Tri-Series diary...
Trevor Bayliss spoke on Sunday about perhaps scrapping Twenty20 internationals outside of World Cups but I wouldn't be in favour of that.
Franchise T20 competitions are great and the skill level is very high, but playing for your country is a huge honour and T20 is so popular that it should be recognised as an international game.
I wouldn't enjoy it if I knew I was only going to get to play T20 for England for six months every four years.
What has been nice about the Tri-Series - albeit that we haven't got the results we wanted and played some really disappointing cricket, especially in Australia - is that we have been able to play four matches.
Even on Sunday, we knew that if we won well enough against New Zealand, we could have got through to the final. The tournament has added relevance to games and created pressure situations.
T20 in international cricket can almost be paid lip-service at times, with one game tagged on to the end of an ODI series or a long tour - sometimes it can feel like there is no point in playing it.
I have enjoyed it more on the tours we have been on where we have played three ODIs and three T20s, so I would like to see that or more Tri-Series in 50-over and 20-over cricket. I guess it just comes down to the question of what is too much cricket.
Obviously I made some comments to Ian Ward last week about perhaps T20 being the only format in 15 or 20 years' time - I just feel like that is potentially where the game is going.
We forget that T20 cricket is only about 15 years old and considering how popular it is already, I see it going from strength to strength.
If you are going to introduce cricket to other countries then I think T20 is the format with which to do it - it's a great entry level into the sport and easy to pick up.
The hope then is that new people like what they see and find a love for the longer form of the game but whether it does that or not is for the public to answer.
We finished the Tri-Series with an overwhelming feeling of disappointment - we didn't earn the right to get anywhere near the final and, as an honest group, we will admit that we didn't play to our potential.
The one major positive, though, was Dawid Malan, who now has four fifties in five T20I innings. All credit to him for keeping producing performances, stretching back to his fantastic Ashes series.
He probably got his chance to play Test cricket after impressing so much with his knock against South Africa last year on his T20 debut, in which he showed tremendous character.
It's a route I took into Test cricket, too - getting there from my one-day form - but I don't think I will earn a Test recall on the basis of that.
Having played before and been dropped I think people will always remember that, so if I am ever going to play Tests again I will need to show improvements in red-ball cricket.
Adil Rashid, of course, is focusing solely on limited-overs cricket this year - I think it's really exciting for a guy to say: 'I'm going to spend a year becoming the best I can be in the white-ball game'. Is it a route I would go down? Potentially - but I am very happy with my situation at the moment.
The cricket keeps coming thick and fast and we now have the ODI series against New Zealand to look forward to, starting in Hamilton on Sunday.
It is really important to try and refresh mentally on long tours and see some sights, especially in places as fantastic as New Zealand, so that's what we will be doing.
You have to have a few days of not picking your bat up to make sure you get that real hunger and desire back before the games start and it then goes back to that travel-train-play cycle.
Ben Stokes is back with us - it had a back-at-school feel when he trained with us for the first time having been away for a bit! He is excited, has fitted in well, and it's like he's never been away.
He brings so much to the group on and off the field and is fantastic to bat with. He takes a lot of pressure off you with the things he is capable off, so hopefully I can have some good partnerships with him, not just for England but also in the IPL with Rajasthan Royals.
He's a phenomenal talent and you probably have the best seat in the house when you're batting with him.
Watch England's five-match ODI series against New Zealand on Sky Sports Cricket, starting with the opener in Hamilton, live from 12.30am on Saturday night/Sunday morning.
