England v New Zealand: Cook backs Buttler to repeat his ODI fireworks

Alastair Cook says he is confident that England’s Jos Buttler can repeat his one-day international fireworks many more times in the future.

The 22-year-old batsman blitzed New Zealand’s attack with a knock of 47 runs off just 16 balls, propelling his side to a match-winning total of 287, as England secured a morale-boosting win ahead of the Champions Trophy, which begins on Thursday.

The hosts play Australia on Saturday at Edgbaston in their opening match of the 50-over competition, and Cook insists his young star will go from strength-to-strength as his international career progresses.

Speaking at the post-match news conference, Cook said: “We have seen Buttler do it a number of time in the nets and for Somerset, and we’re going to see him to do it again for England. I have absolutely no doubt about that.

“We’ve all seen those shots before. It was quite nice having the opposition captain going through what we had to the other day (at the Ageas Bowl on Sunday) – you feel a bit hopeless and helpless.”

England needed to win Wednesday’s match – a dead rubber – having lost the previous two matches in the series against the world ranked eighth-placed team.

But Cook felt that England were not too far off where they needed to be and Wednesday’s 34-run win against the Black Caps demonstrated that.

The 28-year-old added: “I would say that we have got things more right than what we have been doing. We haven’t played too badly in the other two games.

“Martin (Guptill) played an outstanding innings at the Ageas Bowl and if anyone who scores 190 against you’re not going to win too many games but today (at Trent Brdige) it was great for (Ian) Bell to carry on and get 80-odd and we laid a really good platform, clearly some outstanding hitting at the end which made the difference.

“It is great to have the talent and the potential to do that and it is encouraging to do it, as well.”