Jos 2.0: Method in IPL madness

That’s not a surprise in itself, he has played a significant part in defining the modern grammar of the white-ball game.
Rajasthan Royals' Jos Buttler (Photo| PTI)
Rajasthan Royals' Jos Buttler (Photo| PTI)

CHENNAI: Jos Buttler is making the Indian Premier League (IPL) appointment viewing. The Rasjasthan Royals opener, already on 375 runs for the season with at least seven games left to play, has taken an indefinite lease of the Orange Cap. That’s not a surprise in itself, he has played a significant part in defining the modern grammar of the white-ball game.

What’s surprising is the way he’s changed himself to become a lethal T20 opener. He’s added consistency to his game by being more watchful in the first over, playing out the opposition’s strike bowler in the middle phase, dotting up and compensating for that by striking more boundaries. By chance or by design, he’s also giving himself every chance to make a game-changing score. He’s getting the bulk of the strike in the first six overs.

Since the beginning of 2021, the 31-year-old has made four 100s in this format (two more than anybody else). Opening the batting helps but it only helps if you make adjustments to counter conditions (seam movement if any, getting set, assessing the pitch and taking all that information on board before).

In a year when seamers have had multiple success in the opening overs, Buttler’s cautious approach in this phase is all the more important. In what may come as a surprise, 50 per cent of all his powerplay shots have yielded zero runs. Curiously, 21 of those 65 dots have come in the first over: 22 per cent of all the dot balls he has faced so far in this IPL has come in the first over (the corresponding number for boundaries is seven per cent). This is a vastly different approach to the one he employed in previous years.

To compensate for this approach, he has, either by design or chance, faced more balls in the powerplay than his partners. The logic being, he can always make up for the dots by hitting boundaries later on in the powerplay. He has executed this plan to perfection: 29 of his 55 hits to the fence have come between the second and the sixth over.

The other aspect of his batsmanship is the way he’s picking his battles. If Basil Thampi (26 off six balls) and Yash Dayal (33 off 11) bore the brunt of his educated hitting in two matches, he has been watchful against other bowlers. Take the example of the match against Kolkata Knight Riders on Monday: 59 of his 103 runs came off two bowlers (30 off 18 against Umesh Yadav 29 from 14 off Pat Cummins). Against Sunil Narine, though, he was bunting and running if not dotting. He faced nine balls and just took five singles. He adopted the same approach against Jasprit Bumrah during his ton against Mumbai Indians. Off the 15 balls, he only picked up 11 runs (10 dots).

On Friday night, he will again be in action, this time against Delhi Capitals.

Related Stories

No stories found.
The New Indian Express
www.newindianexpress.com