Jos Buttler can do no wrong in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022. On Tuesday, in the Qualifier 1 against Gujarat Titans, the Rajasthan Royals opener scored 89 from just 56 balls to help his team reach 188/6 in 20 overs at the Eden Gardens in Calcutta. He hit 12 fours and two sixes on his way to complete 700 runs in the current edition of the IPL. He has scored 718 points in 15 games so far. He is the sixth batter to have scored more than 700 runs in a single edition of the IPL.
In the course of the innings, he also reached another milestone. When he hit the score of 36, he became the third Englishman after Alex Hales and Luke Wright to hit the 8000 run in the T20s. Buttler is also just a century away from matching Virat Kohli’s record of most centuries in a single IPL season. Kohli had hit 4 in the 2016 season and Buttler is on three this year.
Against GT, Buttler was very lucky and showed quite a bit of guts in a turn of 89. Orange Cap holder Buttler, who had failed to get his act together in the second half of the season, got off to a slow start but took full advantage of a few dropped catches during his 56-ball slam studded with 12 fours and two sixes.
Buttler, who now has 718 runs in 15 games, scored 39 of his first 38 balls and then hit another 50 of his next 18 deliveries.
Buttler was also lucky enough to get two deferrals at 43 first when Hardik Pandya slipped to miss a nanny, then Rashid Khan gave him grass at 69.
He then took on Alzarri Joseph who broke three boundaries in an over to speed up his score before running out in the last over.
First up was skipper Sanju Samson swagger who was in full view as the Royals skipper, seemingly hurt by the final selections, responded in style with a 26-ball 47 (5×4, 3×6).
At a time when Buttler was struggling to get going, the wicketkeeper batter broke the boundaries in his entertaining power play display.
Samson split 68-run tie with Buttler, 47 of which came from the knife of the former, summing up the domination of the Royals skipper after they were put in.
He looked foreboding from the first ball itself, when he lifted Dayal for an effortless six.
Titans’ tempo duo, Mohammed Shami and Alzarri Joseph, struggled with their lines and lengths, while Sanju took full advantage of them to bring the score to 55/1 in six overs.
Just as they were about to spiral out of control, none other than the cunning Afghan spinner stepped on the brakes and came into the bowl after the power play.
promoted
With the ball stuck on the dry surface, Rashid cleverly used his variations against his ‘bunny’ Buttler as the Englishman struggled to turn the shot.
He allowed only two runs from the second over which seemingly put pressure on Sanju to face Sai Kishore in the next over when he was killed in a flying delivery.
Topics mentioned in this article
