Jos Buttler Misses Out on New IPL Record

Half of the Indian Premier League was over and the Rajasthan Royals overseas players hadn’t contributed anything much to their franchise. Ben Stokes was the most expensive player at the IPL 2018 auction – in 12 games so far, he only managed 5 wickets at an economy of close to 9 and 185 runs at a poor average of around 16.

D’Arcy Short was given many a chances but he couldn’t repay the faith either, while his replacement Heinrich Klaasen wasn’t much better. Jos Buttler in the middle order was another vital cog in this Rajasthan team but just couldn’t get himself going until a brilliant move from captain Ajinkya Rahane of promoting Buttler to the top of the innings.

What followed was scintillating batting, now three consecutive wins for Rajasthan, and a record 5 consecutive fifties for the Englishman. He brought his team up from the bottom of the table to having a genuine chance of qualifying for the IPL 2018 playoffs. These were his scores since his promotion to the top of the order:

67(26) vs Delhi
51(39) vs Punjab
82(58) vs Punjab
95(60)* vs Chennai
94(53)* vs Mumbai

He equalled a 6-year old record in the Indian Premier League, set by Virender Sehwag. Playing for Delhi Daredevils at the time, Sehwag scored 5 consecutive fifties in IPL 2012, a record that stood for 6 years, only to be equalled by Jos Buttler, batting for Rajasthan Royals in IPL 2018.

Having joined Sehwag in the last game against Mumbai, Buttler would’ve been extremely eager to go one step further, break the record and stand in a space above everyone else. Another fifty would mean six consecutive 50+ scores in the Indian Premier League, something no one has ever achieved.

After a rollicking start in the powerplay against Kolkata Knight Riders, Rajasthan slightly slowed down after the loss of Rahul Tripathi, but Buttler decided to carry on. KKR knew that this was a vital wicket in this important game as Buttler has proved unstoppable so far in IPL 2018. Ultimately, he was dismissed by Kuldeep Yadav trying to play a reverse sweep in the 10th over. He scored 39(22) and missed this record by 11 runs!

Buttler, being primarily known as a limited overs specialist has not played first class season this season and hasn’t played a test for England since December 2016. However, he has been recalled to the England test squad against Pakistan, seeing this brilliant display of batting in India, and while this may be good news for England and Buttler, Rajasthan will surely miss him coming into the business end of the tournament.

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