Jos Buttler the Unstoppable Player 🏏

The Buttler plan has come to fruition rather more quickly than expected. After much agonising last season – on both sides – Jos Buttler severed his ties with Somerset, where he was educated and nurtured as a cricketer, in order to enhance his chances of playing Test cricket for England. It was an emotional time for everyone involved but 10 months on, he is on the threshold of playing his first test for England at Southampton. And if all goes well, it will not matter much which county Buttler represents because he will scarcely be available for domestic cricket.

He is already established as England’s one-day wicketkeeper, his status confirmed by some steady performances behind the stumps and that stupendous innings at Lord’s against Sri Lanka , so that the outcome was still in the balance in the last over. Destruction, power, elegance – these three words can be associated with a batter like Jos Buttler. Jos the Boss, as he is so fondly called, has played some wonderful knocks in his career. Playing for Rajasthan Royals in the IPL, Butler has made the fans go wow with his power-hitting and some of his knocks have just been brilliant.

Not only in the IPL, Jos is one player who has done well in the international circuit as well. He has been a part of Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premiere League. He has been one of the asset for Rajasthan Royals for many seasons. This time, the team looks fantastic and one of the team to lift the title this season. Jos Buttler is looking in great touch this season and is the current Orange Cap holder for Rajasthan Royals.

It is scary to think what Jos Buttler can do this IPL. Only because of what he has already done this season (which is just on the verge of reaching the halfway stage). Most runs, most hundreds, highest individual score, most fours, most sixes. Many feats, one name: Jos Buttler. At the moment, Buttler is scoring centuries will fully and making batting look ridiculously easy. He already has three centuries in seven matches this season. The record for most centuries in IPL history is held by Chris Gayle, who had six in 141 innings.

The next best haul belongs to Virat Kohli, who has five in 206 innings. Jos Buttler, who is joint-third on the list, has four centuries in just 71 IPL innings. David Warner and Shane Watson, who also have four tons each, got there in 155 and 141 innings, respectively. Don’t bother betting on Buttler leaving Gayle in the wake as you won’t win much. Interestingly, though, Buttler is using the same modus operandi that Gayle deployed to leave the opposition think tanks numb and their bowlers dumbfounded.

Of his 491 runs this IPL, Jos Buttler has got 356 just in boundaries. And that is the ethos of Buttler’s T20 batting: hack runs relentlessly in fours and sixes without bothering about breaking a sweat running twos and threes. Preserve, and not waste energy has been Buttler’s success mantra, which has helped the Rajasthan Royals opener smack some of the biggest boundaries even in the death overs.

In all three centuries this season, Buttler’s dot-ball percentage was one of the highest. In fact, against Mumbai Indians he had 28 dots in 68 balls. That is 41.20% – the highest in a century in the IPL. Against Knight Riders, it was 34.40% (24/65) and against Capitals it was 36.90% (21/61). In comparison, the dot-ball percentage in Kohli’s five centuries ranged between 17% and 30%. Gayle, though, had similar numbers to that of Buttler with an average of 34%.

The median dot-ball percentage for Buttler stands at 35.70% while Gayle’s was 34.20% and Kohli’s 20.70%.Against Mumbai, Buttler had ransacked 26 runs in a single over off Basil Thampi in the powerplay which was one of the turning points in the game.

Jos Buttler has performed brilliantly for team England as he has became one of their match-savers. He also contributed in England 2019 World Cup win. He is good at roasting bowlers like he did with the West Indies Bowler who salutes after taking wickets of the batsman. Rajasthan Royals have a great chance of going in the Play-Offs this season, after a debacle previous seasons after 2018. He has earned a lot of respect for his kind gesture on the field.

In April 2019, he was named as the vice-captain of the England squad for the 2019 World Cup The ICC named Buttler as the key player of England’s squad prior to the tournament. Buttler made a quiet start to the tournament, scoring only 18 runs in the opening match of the tournament against South Africa at The Oval, which ended in a comprehensive 104-run win for England. In the next match against Pakistan, he scored 103 from 76 balls (the then-fastest century by an English batsman in a World Cup) and shared a 130-run partnership with Joe Root for the fourth wicket, despite a shock 14-run defeat. He made 64 in the third match against Bangladesh as England posted 386/6, their highest ever World Cup score.

However, he did not keep wicket during Bangladesh’s innings after sustaining a minor hip injury while batting, making way for Jonny Baristow to assume the role for the match,^[which England won by 106 runs. England had played brilliantly against all the opponents in this World Cup, in the final New Zealand lost because of the six penalty runs that touch Ben Stokes t-shirt flew in the boundary hopes. Then again, the Super Over got tied and there was no rule that if Super over got tied, then the team would battle it out for the next Super Over. We were able to witness this Super Over thing in the Punjab Kings and Mumbai Indians match.