CricketWeb Times
We got it all over them
Sick Test batsman speaks out
Chris Butler, the CW XI batsman who has been taken ill with chickenpox and required intensive treatment in Nixontown General Hospital, is now on the way to returning to the world of the living, and is expected to be released from hospital in the next week, with another week required to reach full match fitness. The CricketWeb Times caught up with him, and conducted an interview from a safe distance.
Butler is particularly positive about the next two Tests, despite the fact that he will still be bedridden during them. When questioned about his predictions for the series, Butler was confident that the side would prevail in both the next two Tests, and said that "apart from the 1st Test fielding meltdown, we have completely dominated this Pakistan team", and also said the recent injury to in-form batsman Mohammad Yousuf gave the team an advantage.
When asked about the "fielding meltdown", Butler mentioned watching the second Pakistani innings of the first Test as "particularly painful"; Pakistan racked up over 600 as CW XI dropped catches and bowled inaccurate lines, one of their worst Test bowling performances since the infamous Test defeat in Bangladesh. Nevertheless, he said that the team "showed a lot of heart to come back."
Butler has been solid in Test cricket, scoring 1,286 runs at a batting average of 36.74, with two Test centuries. The best of them, at least in memory if not in the scorebook, was the magnificent 107 in the series-drawing effort at Melbourne, as he and captain Brendan Goff took the game away from the Aussies and helped CW XI achieving what was arguably their greatest achievement in the Test arena. This was meant to establish him as a Test player. Instead, he faces an upward battle after both David Kearsley and Rob Dauth played mature knocks in the second Test against Pakistan; still, Butler says that he's had "encouraging words with the selectors," and is "positive" about his chances to return to the international fold in the next series.
This despite his recent World Cup, where Butler had an important role at four behind ODI greats Markus, Camps and Goff. However, when CW chased a stiff 299 in the final, Butler came in at 187 for three and failed to keep the run rate up against Gillespie, who had him caught behind for six. He ended the World Cup with an average of 26.12, though he didn't have the chance to boost his average against the weak opposition in the preliminary stages, and said that "the World Cup was strange" and that he hoped he had "done enough in the past to keep his spot."