Six sixes off an over has never happened in an Indian Premier League game, ever. And that’s what it came down to on Friday night as Rovman Powell looked to do the impossible. Six, six, six – Obed McCoy had nowhere to hide. The game was there for the taking, except Delhi Capitals’ support staff, and its captain, lost their cool on a no-ball situation.
Was it above waist height? Maybe. Did that warrant the boorish behaviour? No. Umpiring errors happen, and will continue to happen. Your captain cannot call off batters. Your coach cannot encroach on the field.
Maybe it was because when you are chasing 223 runs in 20 overs, there isn’t much to think. You just have to go for it and see how things pan out. Kolkata Knight Riders tried, came close and ultimately went down. Delhi Capitals followed much the same route, came close, lost their cool, and went down. Advantage – Rajasthan Royals!
In fact, that last phrase rings out true ever since Rajasthan signed the dotted line to retain Jos Buttler. At Rs 10 crore, it is turning out to be quite the bargain too, for he is in priceless form. Ahead of the Kolkata game, there was a video of Buttler batting in the nets put up by the Royals’ social media team. He hit every ball off the middle of his bat.
Thump. Thump. Thump. It is a sweet symphony to any cricket lover, making your ears stand up and your brainwaves identify what it is. That is a batter in the most purple-hued form of his life. When every ball he wants to hit, stays hit. When every ball he miss-hits, that stays hit too.
That last bit brings two particular shots to mind. Against Pat Cummins in the Kolkata game, he smacked one bending low, outstretching across his off-stump and managed to get it past backward point for four. It wasn’t the most natural shape for a batsman to be in, but Buttler made it count through sheer will. Against Khaleel Ahmed on Friday night, he was in two minds about the incoming delivery and top-edged one when on nought. It flew for four above slips.
When edges are flying to the boundary rope, when untimed shots are resulting in sixes, it is obvious what happens when he gets them from the middle of his bat. After the hundred against Kolkata, Buttler ended the debate on who is the best T20 opener in the world at present. After the hundred against Delhi, twice in as many innings, he replaced the word ‘opener’ with ‘batter’. Jos Buttler is the best T20 batter in the world at present. Period!
This differentiation is important, for it emanates from the manner in which he scores. The hundred against Kolkata was an easy, free-flowing one from the word go. Against Delhi, Buttler had to find his rhythm to get going. He had no runs from the first three balls. He had 11 from 14 balls. And yet, he managed to reach 50 off 36 balls, taking 39 off 22 deliveries. The next 50 came even quicker – 21 balls. This wilful acceleration makes Buttler the most destructive batter in T20 cricket at the moment.
Of course, there is a second gear to his batting approach as well. Wind back a few games, when Rajasthan played Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Wankhede, Buttler scored 70 not out off 47 balls. It was a different wicket to the one used on Friday, more two-paced with the ball not coming onto his blade as easily. It didn’t help that Rajasthan lost Yashaswi Jaiswal, Devdutt Padikkal and Sanju Samson when the innings hadn’t yet hit top gear.
While wickets fell at the other end, he dropped anchor. At the end of 12 overs, as the score read 86-3, Buttler was batting on 33* off 27 balls. He had only faced 37.5 per cent of the innings’ deliveries until then and yet had scored 38.3 per cent of the total runs at that juncture. Of course, he then went on to smack 37 runs off the next 20 balls he faced, including four sixes off the last five deliveries he faced.
It was reminiscent of the knock he had played against Sri Lanka in the 2021 T20 World Cup. He had scored 101* off 67 balls that day on a slow, dual-paced Sharjah wicket. This scoreline hides the manner in which he scored those runs – England were struggling at 35-3 in 5.2 overs, Buttler dropped anchor until the 12th over wherein he was 35* off 38 balls. The 66-run acceleration off the next 29 balls helped England to a par-plus score and ultimately to victory on the day.
Buttler’s dominance reflects in the manner he accelerates at will. It is different from other dominant T20 batters we have seen, in that he uses different gears through an innings. It isn’t an all-out slam-bang approach like Chris Gayle, for Buttler likes to run hard. Hell, he ran four between the wickets on a late stop against Kolkata. It isn’t textbook ODI batting with a late flourish as is Virat Kohli’s style. It isn’t a constricted hitting approach, albeit bordering on genius, like AB de Villiers.
In that, Buttler’s style is perhaps most similar to David Warner's, and this is where the final point of this narration emerges. Buttler finished that 2021 T20 World Cup with 269 runs from six games, with the highest average (89.66) and the second-highest strike rate (151.12) among top-four batters. He failed in the semi-final (29 off 24 balls) as New Zealand dumped England out. His form, and his runs, went to nought in the UAE.
Why the parallel here? Back in 2016, Kohli was in a similar indomitable touch. He scored 273 runs in five games at the T20 World Cup, only to not win it. He carried that form into the IPL, scored a monstrous 973 runs in 16 matches, only for Royal Challengers Bangalore to not win it.
Buttler’s form brings those Kohli comparisons to mind. He has three hundreds in the 2022 IPL and is on course to break Kohli’s record of four in the 2016 season. With 491 runs in seven games, he could easily break the 973-mark, or even the 1000-run barrier too. Those are feats we would like to see from the best T20 batter in the world, plying his wares in the best league this format has to offer.
But what use is it all, if Rajasthan Royals do not win the 2022 IPL? What use is it, if England doesn’t win the 2022 T20 World Cup? Best at the moment, or best ever, that is now up to Buttler to make his purple form count.
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