Muted Buttler keen to make some noise

With England now needing to win their final two group games to guarantee qualification to the semi-final stage, Jos Buttler is challenging himself to do more © AFP

By Jos Buttler's lofty standards, it has been a quiet World Cup.

With just 222 runs from six innings at an average of 37, England's most dynamic batsman has not really got going. In fact, his highest score of 103 came in defeat to Pakistan. Not that Buttler should carry the burden for a failed chase of 349 at Trent Bridge. But certainly the 28-year old was expected to be a much bigger part of this team's plans.

His last two innings of 25 and 10 will have smarted the most: both, again, in botched chases against Australia and Sri Lanka respectively. The last knock, at Lord's on Tuesday was particularly galling: the medium pace of Marcus Stoinis clipped to square leg, caught on the rope of the shortest available boundary.

And so, with the hosts now needing to win their final two group games to guarantee qualification to the semi-final stage, Buttler is challenging himself to do more.

"OK," is how he rated his tournament so far. "Definitely some room for improvement. It started well but I haven't had the impact on the last few games that I'd like. My aim all the time is to influence the games in a winning way for England. That's at the forefront of my mind with the bat and the gloves."

Sunday against India would be the perfect place to start, though more out of necessity than to ease his worries. Somehow, despite England having a favourable run of group matches, they now must beat two strong teams (they play New Zealand in Durham on Wednesday) to stay at their own party. The first of three defeats came in the second match of the tournament and was soon overcome by comfortable wins against Bangladesh, West Indies and Afghanistan. Then the two aberrations.

Losing three on the bounce for this team is unthinkable, though the prospect of India, new world number one in ODIs after England's brace of missteps, makes that as real a possibility as it has been over the last four years. Lessons from those two games have been learned but the gaze, for Buttler and the rest of the squad, is forward.

"Against Sri Lanka we were very disappointed with the way we played. We know we should have got over the line in that game. I think against Australia unfortunately we didn't get the early wickets we were hoping to there and they did take early wickets. I think that was a really big phase of the game in that game and credit to Australia they played well.

"Those two games, we park them and move on. We've got two massive fixtures to come obviously a huge one on Sunday which you know everything is still in our hands, the stuff we can control, so that's what we'll be aiming to do."

Recent history gives England a degree of comfort. It was around this time last summer that India went one-nil up in the bilateral series, only for Eoin Morgan's men to rally to a 2-1 victory across the three games. That particular turnaround came after working to combat wrist spinners Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal. Both the coming back from defeat angle and effectively working over India's spin threat are two narratives Buttler is understandably more than happy to push.

"Looking back to last summer we came back well in that series but this is a one off game in a World Cup. We know a lot about this India side, someone like Kuldeep in that series we hadn't faced a lot. (After) that first game we came back well against him.

"It's one of those games that gets your juices flowing against a fantastic India side. We're looking forward to it."

Jason Roy and Jofra Archer were both at training on Friday as they look to prove their fitness for Sunday. Roy's recovery from a left hamstring tear is stepping up. He batted and was said to be moving well. James Vince, his replacement, has struggled with scores of 26, 14 and then a second-ball duck against Australia and there will be a strong temptation to risk even an 80% fit Roy.

As for Archer, his side strain did not stop him playing the previous match but did restrict him to light training. Saturday should bring more concrete updates on him and Roy.