England's stand-in ODI skipper Jos Buttler on Saturday said that all the three-formats against India have been competitive and both teams have been desperate to come out on the winning side.
In the second ODI, which India lost by six wickets, Prasidh Krishna took two wickets of Jonny Bairstow and Jos Buttler. Bairstow and Ben Stokes played knocks of 124 and 99 respectively as England defeated India with 39 balls to spare to level the three-match series 1-1. The series decider will now be played on Sunday.
"Someone like Virat (Kohli) is a very competitive guy and an emotional player who rides the emotions of the game. That's the great thing about cricket, everyone is different and we all play the game in our own way. I think this series has been fiercely competitive, both teams have been desperate to win and that's what you expect in international cricket. There will be times when guys can get competitive but it is all-natural," said Buttler during a virtual press conference on Saturday.
In the second ODI, Buttler was clean bowled by Prasidh Krishna and England's wicketkeeper-batsman was not able to get off the mark. Talking about Prasidh, Buttler said: "It was a good ball, it was too good for me at that time. Credit to him, few guys have seen him in the IPL."
When asked whether England would be under pressure in the ODI series decider, Buttler said: "We want to win all the games. It is great to be in another final as such, the T20s went to a decider and this series, is the same. Great games to be involved in, we all are looking forward to it. Excellent performance yesterday and we will take the confidence into the final game on Sunday.
"India is a fantastic side and they have a style that they play with, they have enjoyed success by playing like that. As a side, we tend to focus on ourselves as much as we can. We want to play in a certain fashion, we probably coped some criticism from the first game but we came out to play in the same fashion in the second ODI," he added.
Answering about the biggest positives from the tour of India, Buttler said: "T20s were great in us learning about playing here with the World Cup looming in future. Eoin Morgan and Chris Silverwood talked about building that pool of players who are exposed to international cricket and who are exposed to playing against India in India, this is probably as hard it gets in international cricket. Most of the guys have had opportunities, it was great to see Liam Livingstone make his debut yesterday. It was great to see Reece Topley come back in and bowl so well."
( With inputs from ANI )
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