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“It is a major focus for us to win a game of cricket”

England wicketkeeper-batsman Jos Buttler has admitted that the national team are “very desperate” to avoid being whitewashed again as they currently trail Australia 3-0 in the ongoing ODI series.

Buttler’s comments come after England were whitewashed 5-0 in the recently concluded Ashes series.

“Obviously we are very desperate to avoid that (losing record),” Buttler said. “It’s not a tag anyone would like. You go into every game wanting to win it and we haven’t done that this tour.

“Everyone is very disappointed with that fact, but Friday is another opportunity to try and turn that around.”

Even though Australia have now dethroned India as the top-ranked ODI team, Buttler noted that England’s mission remains the same, to win one of the two remaining ODIs.

“It is a major focus for us to win a game of cricket,” he said. “We haven’t done that on this tour and everyone knows why, because we haven’t performed well enough.

“We have to turn that around at some point. We can’t hide behind the fact and no-one wants to continue losing every game of cricket.

“At some point we need to turn that around and Friday is another opportunity to do that.

“One-day cricket is a tough game to play when your confidence has been knocked.You need to play with that free, open mind. That’s something we need to do. We can’t worry about consequences of playing a shot and worrying about getting out.

“We just need to take that mentality in – we had a good chat on Tuesday and a day off on Wednesday. Everyone is feeling refreshed.

“You’ve seen the Australians playing with a good brand of cricket and a very confident brand of cricket naturally because they are winning games. It’s a very tough thing to do when you are losing games to not worry about the outcomes of potentially getting out and these sorts of things. That’s something we have to do – lose that worry of those kinds of things and know what good players we are and be confident in that.”