diff --git a/buildSrc/src/main/groovy/org/elasticsearch/gradle/test/ClusterFormationTasks.groovy b/buildSrc/src/main/groovy/org/elasticsearch/gradle/test/ClusterFormationTasks.groovy
index 34dde6e5dad..83dd1b7e4c5 100644
--- a/buildSrc/src/main/groovy/org/elasticsearch/gradle/test/ClusterFormationTasks.groovy
+++ b/buildSrc/src/main/groovy/org/elasticsearch/gradle/test/ClusterFormationTasks.groovy
@@ -418,8 +418,7 @@ class ClusterFormationTasks {
                 // argument are wrapped in an ExecArgWrapper that escapes commas
                 args execArgs.collect { a -> new EscapeCommaWrapper(arg: a) }
             } else {
-                executable 'sh'
-                args execArgs
+                commandLine execArgs
             }
         }
     }