Jos Buttler yearns for 'tangibles' to go with England's expansive playing style

England cricket has come a long way since their harrowing experience at the Adelaide Oval - the venue of their semifinal clash against India on Thursday (November 10) - seven years ago at the 50-over World Cup. A defeat to Bangladesh and the exit from the tournament flipped their white-ball narrative for good, paving the way for an exciting style of play that culminated in the ultimate redemption at the 2019 World Cup. Having tasted success there, Jos Buttler is hoping there's more 'tangible' things to show come the weekend.

"I think we all want to win things, [we] certainly don't want to be a team that just says we played a great style of cricket," Buttler said on the eve of the semi final clash against India in Sydney. "You want to have tangible things that you have achieved throughout that, as well."

"Getting to the semifinals and final, the big prize is obviously standing there with the trophy at the end of the game, and that's what we all want to achieve. But we know that the way we play is going to give us the best chance of doing that," he added.

As far as playing styles go, teams have had to temper their expectations and recalibrate in the face of testing batting conditions in Australia across venues. Even their semifinal opponents - India - who have undergone batting ideology transformation since a tame exit from the World Cup last year, have had to adjust and hold back on unleashing the unbridled approach to run-making. Buttler acknowledged the difficulty faced by batters throughout but reckoned his team will continue to 'take the game on' as much as possible.

"I think we'll always be trying to take the game on as much as we can. In all cricket you have to adapt to the surfaces in front of you. In Australia, you play on some grounds with much larger boundaries than others, so I'd assume the boundary count across the tournament is probably lower than it may be in other countries. So I think that's probably been a part of the games," Buttler said.

"But no, we certainly always try and push the level if we can. That doesn't mean we always aim for 200. On certain surfaces pushing the boundaries might be 150 instead of settling for 125 or 130. We'll always be trying to do that and trying to fall on the more positive side," he added.

Having suffered a defeat to Ireland early and having to split points with Australia because of a washout, England were behind the eight-ball in the race to the semis and played a couple of must-win fixtures on their way to the last-four. Buttler reckoned his team already knew the feeling of playing knockout cricket, which should hold them in good stead going ahead.

"We've played in two must-win games just before this, as well, so we're used to that feeling of being in knockout cricket already. So we feel that we've gained some good confidence from those matches. The team feels in a really good space, and everyone is really excited for what's going to be a great night," Buttler said.