‘He’s doing all he can’: England back Buttler to end miserable run of form
England have not committed to fielding their strongest side in Friday’s do-not-necessarily-have-to-win T20 World Cup encounter with New Zealand but Jos Buttler will be given the chance to turn around his miserable run of form, with the team’s coaching staff convinced that a return to familiar lofty standards is imminent.After six games at the tournament, Buttler’s top score is 26, against Nepal in England’s opener, and in their past four matches he has contributed three, three, seven and two.It is his worst run in international T20s since he followed 13 in his first ever innings with five successive single-digit scores, between February and September 2012.“I’ve played a lot against Jos, he’s one of the most dangerous white-ball batters to play the game,” said Tim Southee, England’s bowling coach.“When you’re that good and you have a bit of a blip, I guess you feel a bit more pressure.
But he’s hitting it as well as he [ever] has in the nets.I’m sure he’s only a couple of good strikes away from another amazing innings.He’s doing his business, doing all he can to perform.”England have not yet named their team for Friday’s game, with Southee saying only that they would “look at conditions and pick what team they think is best suited to match up against New Zealand on that surface”, but he confirmed that Buttler would be selected.“He’s such a dangerous player,” Southee said.
“Any time you see his name on the team sheet it’s a concern for opposition bowlers.”On Thursday the England bowler Mark Wood told Buttler to believe in himself.Drafted in to cover for Buttler on the former white-ball captain’s podcast For the Love of Cricket, Wood said: “I’m sure he’s been through things like this before, and he can just call on those experiences.I’m sure it’ll come good.As a fan everybody wants everyone to hit a hundred every time, but cricket doesn’t work like that.
He might have had a couple of low scores but he’s that good his class will eventually come through,If I had any advice for Jos it would be to keep believing in yourself as much as we all believe in you,”Meanwhile Rob Walter, the New Zealand head coach, said they, too, were braced for a Buttler revival,“I don’t think you’d ever doubt the quality of Jos Buttler,” he said,“We know that all batters probably find a space in their career somewhere where there is a lull, and sometimes it only takes one knock for that to change.
No one will ever doubt his quality, and so we won’t.”Buttler is the only member of England’s top seven not to have scored more than 40 at least once at the World Cup, but with several batters in search of peak form there should be no lack of motivation, even with a place in the final four already secured.They may be no longer in need of points but England remain very much in pursuit of perfection, or something vaguely reminiscent of it.Meanwhile, New Zealand need a win to secure their own place in the final four and both teams know that whoever prevails will top their group and in so doing almost certainly avoid South Africa, who have established themselves as the tournament’s form side after victory over India was followed by a crushing win against West Indies on Thursday.New Zealand: Tim Seifert (WK), Finn Allen, Rachin Ravindra, Glenn Phillips, Daryl Mitchell, Mark Chapman, Mitchell Santner (c), Cole McConchie, Matt Henry, Ish Sodhi, Lockie Ferguson.
England: Phil Salt, Jos Buttler (WK), Harry Brook (c), Jacob Bethell, Tom Banton, Sam Curran, Will Jacks, Rehan Ahmed, Liam Dawson, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid,One source of encouragement for England’s batters is New Zealand’s lack of a cutting edge in the tournament,The Kiwis have taken only 27 wickets, just over half the 51 taken by England, who have played one game more,As a result batters have a much higher average when playing New Zealand than the World Cup’s other leading teams: every other side in the Super 8s is also among the eight against whom batters at the World Cup have the lowest averages, while New Zealand are 15th in those rankings,Against England the average batter has scored 18.
11, against the Black Caps 28.62 – and at almost identical strike rates.“In some of those matches where we didn’t take a full set of 10 wickets we still won the game,” Walter said.“So we still managed to restrict them.In T20 cricket, sometimes restriction is as valuable as wickets.
From our point of view taking wickets is just the end process of executing a skill.For us it’s responding to the conditions, understanding what we need to do as a bowling unit and then collectively doing it.And whether that has a team seven down or all out or two down, if we win the game it’s irrelevant.”
Tell us: how will the UK’s landline switch-off affect you or your family?
UK telecoms companies are retiring traditional landline services and replacing them with internet-based home phone connections.The industry has set a deadline of January 2027 to complete this switch with roughly 3.2 million homes still to move over. While the digital switchover has been straightforward for most households, for some vulnerable customers, such as those with telecare devices, it has been very stressful.In December 2025 Virgin Media was fined £23
‘Unbelievably dangerous’: experts sound alarm after ChatGPT Health fails to recognise medical emergencies
ChatGPT Health regularly misses the need for medical urgent care and frequently fails to detect suicidal ideation, a study of the AI platform has found, which experts worry could “feasibly lead to unnecessary harm and death”.OpenAI launched the “Health” feature of ChatGPT to limited audiences in January, which it promotes as a way for users to “securely connect medical records and wellness apps” to generate health advice and responses. More than 40 million people reportedly ask ChatGPT for health-related advice every day.The first independent safety evaluation of ChatGPT Health, published in the February edition of the journal Nature Medicine, found it under-triaged more than half of the cases presented to it.The lead author of the study, Dr Ashwin Ramaswamy, said “we wanted to answer the most basic safety question; if someone is having a real medical emergency and asks ChatGPT Health what to do, will it tell them to go to the emergency department?”Ramaswamy and his colleagues created 60 realistic patient scenarios covering health conditions from mild illnesses to emergencies
Leave big tech behind! How to replace Amazon, Google, X, Meta, Apple – and more
A handful of companies monopolise the web, with unprecedented access to our data. But there are many more ethical – and often distinctively European – alternativesThere’s not much to love about big tech these days. So many ills can be laid at its door: social media harms, misinformation, polarisation, mining and misuse of personal data, environmental negligence, tax avoidance, the list goes on. Added to which, Silicon Valley’s leaders seem all too keen to cosy up to the Trump administration, to shower the president with bribes – sorry, gifts – and remain silent about his worsening political overreach. And that’s before we get to the rampant “enshittification”, as the tech writer Cory Doctorow describes it, which means that by design many big tech products have become less useful and more extractive than they were when we originally signed up to them
Keen bosses, strange mistakes and a looming threat: workers on training AI to do their jobs
Workers grappling with the rapid growth of artificial intelligence have said they feel “devalued” by the technology and warned of a downward trajectory in the quality of work.Recent analysis by the International Monetary Fund found AI would affect about 40% of jobs around the world. Its head, Kristalina Georgieva, has said: “This is like a tsunami hitting the labour market.”Workers who have trained AI models to replace some or all of their roles tell the Guardian about their experiences.‘I now earn less while working longer correcting the mistakes of AI editors’Christie* edits papers for academics for whom English is a second language
Twenty-year-old to testify at US trial about harm from social media addiction
For the first time, a jury will hear testimony this week from a young woman who alleges social media companies intentionally create addictive products, harming children. The witness taking the stand, known by her initials KGM, is the lead plaintiff in an expansive lawsuit against Meta – which owns Instagram and Facebook – and YouTube currently at trial in Los Angeles.KGM, who is now 20, alleges that she became addicted to social media apps before she was 10 and would spend hours every day scrolling through photos and videos. This led to years of mental health issues, according to her lawyers and court documents.KGM is expected to testify about how her constant use of social media led to depression, anxiety and body dysmorphia
Nvidia quarterly earnings show immunity to AI bubble fears as it cashes in on datacenter boom
Nvidia released its quarterly earnings on Wednesday, with the chipmaker revealing higher than expected revenues and extending its years-long streak of surpassing Wall Street’s sky-high expectations.The company receives the vast majority of its revenue from its datacenter business, which has been buoyed by the tech industry’s immense investment into AI infrastructure. On Wednesday, Nvidia reported 75% year-over-year growth of this vertical to $62.3bn. The world’s most valuable publicly traded company, Nvidia has dominated the chip market as its processing units have become the backbone of the artificial intelligence boom
Subsidies for Rolls-Royce might seem a bit rich, but they are inevitable | Nils Pratley
Drax to stop burning controversial Canadian wood within next year
Met police to pilot facial recognition identity checks, mayor confirms
Instagram to alert parents if teens repeatedly search self-harm terms
Brady Tkachuk decries White House’s AI video of him insulting Canadians after US gold
Golfer Andrea Pavan ‘thankful to be alive’ after reportedly falling down lift shaft