Now then, the players have gone off the field but for what looks like only a short delay as the sun is still shining. There’s some concern about Reece Topley who slipped sending down a short ball that was scythed for SIX off the top edge by Powell. The big bowler hitting the deck hard and then walking off the field very gingerly afterwards. He’s had such bad luck in his career with things like this, fingers crossed it is isn’t anything serious.

Mahmood on a hat-trick! Hetmyer gone first ball! Exclamation mark!

Heaved away and caught in the deep! Mahmood strikes again and good diving catch inches above the turf by Jacob Bethell at mid-wicket.

Full. Too full from Mahmood. Southpaw Lewis gets on the front foot and drives away handsomely for four. Lewis looks in fine fettle, he cracked 94 against England a week or so ago and notched a century against Sri Lanka in Pallekele just a few days before that.

The openers exchange singles. Lewis on strike and GONE! Advancing down the track and losing his shape, a splat straight to Jamie Overton at short cover. England get an early one.

Buttler’s first act upon returning to the fold is to win the toss under sunny skies in Barbados. He says that England, in modern parlance, will prefer to chase.

“There was a bit of rain yesterday so there might be some moisture.” Buttler tells Ian Bishop. “I’m excited to get back in the middle. Jofra is missing, Overton, Topley, Mahmood play, and it’s the usual top seven.”

Windies captain Rovman Powell admits he would have done the same had he won the toss. “We’ve got to keep on improving” Powell says from behind Judge Dredd style shades. “In years gone by we were just trying to compete, now we’re trying to beat them.”

Preamble

James Wallace

They called Leonard Cohen ‘The Godfather of Gloom’ and ‘The High Priest of Pathos’. Pithy nicknames but both misnomers, really. Behind the molasses and tobacco baritone and faltering flamenco Cohen was far from a miserabilist, his words often appearing as if drenched in the Hydra sun – warm, fruity, smutty, sensual.

This is about cricket you plank, what are you crapping on about? Well, bear with me for just a line or two more. I’m bringing us on to Jos Buttler.

You might know him as England’s greatest ever white ball batter, all whip-crack wrists and ice-veined composure. A player of such class and confidence he was made England’s white ball captain after Eoin Morgan hung up his armband. And yet, the F*** It famously scrawled on Buttler’s bat handle offers a glimpse into his own fragility.

As England’s results have soured and curdled so too did Buttler’s on pitch performances and off pitch demeanour. A taciturn and tetchy Buttler became the norm, his watery blue eyes darting, seeking out perceived slights, his jaw perma-clenched readying for a scrap. Any boyish charm had been lost to a sort of bristling insecurity. Captaincy and professional cricket in general can do that to you.

The discrepancy between Buttler at his shimmering, primal and pyrotechnic best and the insecure, slumped shouldered Eeyore in a Cinch branded baseball cap of recent months became quite stark. The guy looked like he needed a break and he ended up getting one, albeit because he got injured.

A calf injury has kept Buttler on the sidelines for five months, in that time Matthew Mott was given his cards and Brendon McCullum the reins – to the white ball squads in addition to the Test one. ‘Baz’ duly noted that his priority task in the role was to shake Buttler out of his “miserable” (McCullum’s word, not mine) stupor and bring back the joy. To reinvigorate Sad Eyed Jossy of The Low Scores, take a sad song and make it better, prise open a crack and let some f***** light in.

McCullum lies in wait but Jos Buttler returns to action today in Bridgetown in the first of five T20 matches against West Indies. Play begins in just over half an hour at 8PM GMT and the toss is imminent…