Former England cricketer Nick Knight has been left impressed with the way Rajasthan Royals’ star opener Jos Buttler has performed in IPL 2022, saying that the right-hander hasn’t taken his form for granted at all while applauding him for taking his time and then taking the opposition bowlers to cleaners.
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Buttler has been on a run-scoring spree in the ongoing tournament, amassing 566 runs in nine matches at an average of 70.75 and strike rate of 155.06. With three centuries and as many fifties against his name, Buttler is leading the Orange Cap race by a margin of 115 runs over Lucknow Super Giants skipper KL Rahul. He has a chance to soar high in terms of runs when Rajasthan face Kolkata Knight Riders in a return fixture at Wankhede Stadium on Monday.
“What impressed me hugely about Jos Buttler is the way he’s started every innings. I mean if we look at the outcome of his innings, mostly it’s either the 50s or 100s, he’s (looking) in a different gear. (But) He tends to forget what he did in the previous game and starts afresh. (He) Hasn’t taken his form for granted at all. He’s giving himself a few balls to get in and then play those big shots,” said Knight on the Cricket Live show on Star Sports.
With Buttler scoring a bulk of runs for Rajasthan Royals in IPL 2022, it has also meant that Rajasthan’s middle-order hasn’t been put to a stern test yet. Former England off-spinner Graeme Swann has cautioned Rajasthan to not rely heavily on Buttler’s runs and advised the middle-order batters to start scoring runs in the middle overs as pitches start to slow down in the second half of the tournament.
“The worrying thing from Rajasthan Royals’ point of view, if there is something they need to worry about, is that at the back end of the tournament the wickets are going to slow down where it will start skidding more. Up until now, they’ve played on some brilliant batting tracks and the RR batting has been so good that they’ve won every game. They’ve been too far ahead of every team.
“But with the wickets turning and getting slow (as the tournament progresses) it may distract them going forward and they might lose some close games. So, they’ll have to find a way because it cannot always be smash-smash-smash, and they can’t heavily rely on Buttler. They need to find a way in the middle overs to score those 10-20 runs extra even in low scoring games.”
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