England v South Africa: ‘Baptism of fire’ for new white-ball captain Jos Buttler

It is little more than a fortnight since the retirement of World Cup-winning skipper Eoin Morgan saw Buttler promoted to the top job and faced with a busy first month in the role. Yesterday’s ODI retirement of Ben Stokes simply made Buttler’s task all the more challenging.

His side are halfway through a packed July schedule of 12 games in 24 days and were left empty handed by India, who took 2-1 series wins in the Twenty20 and one-day contests.

Defeat in the 50-over format was a rarity for a team who had learned to dominate in home conditions under Morgan, with just two other losses since 2015, but India showed why they are already favourites to succeed England as world champions in their own conditions next year.

The fixture list leaves little leeway to pore over the performances, with the first ODI against the Proteas taking place at Chester-le-Street on Tuesday.

Mott, who is also new to the job following his appointment as limited-overs head coach in May, said: “There’s definitely been areas we can improve. We don’t have long to go into it in too much detail but it has been disappointing.

“I think ‘hard work’ is a good summary. We definitely haven’t played our best cricket, there’s no shying away from that. Jos’ leadership has been a baptism of fire.

“We know we’ve been off in a couple of departments and India made us pay heavily.

“But we have an opportunity to turn that around against another very strong opposition.

“We’ve only been together a few weeks as captain and coach and are developing a great rapport.”

While Morgan has exited the stage, his presence continues to be felt in different ways as Mott revealed he remains in regular contact with the Dubliner.

He said: “Most mornings I still catch up with him, say g’day and get his thoughts. He’ll be a great sounding board for both Jos and myself about what he’s seen from the outside.”

England have two fresh faces in their squad at Durham, in Yorkshire leg-spinner Adil Rashid and Matthew Potts.