'He hasn’t taken his form for granted at all': Former England opener heaps praise on RR's star batter Jos Buttler

Former England cricketer Nick Knight has been impressed with the way Rajasthan Royals’ (RR) star English opener Jos Buttler is scoring runs game after game in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 season. The top-order batter is on a run-scoring spree and is leading the Orange Cap race by a margin of more than a hundred runs.

The wicketkeeper-batter has 566 runs to his name in nine matches. Knight has lauded Buttler for forgetting the successes of the previous games each time he walks onto the field, taking his time to get used to the pitch and the conditions, and then constructing his innings accordingly.

Speaking on ‘Cricket Live’ on Star Sports, Knight said, “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.”

However, former England spinner Graeme Swann cautioned the Royals not to rely heavily on Buttler. He advised the middle-order batters to start scoring runs in the middle overs. Swann reckons scoring at a decent pace in the middle overs will work out well for the teams in the upcoming games as the pitches will slow down as the teams enter the business end of the tournament, while most of the Rajasthan batters love batting on fast surfaces.

“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) 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,” Swann said.

The Royals' next match will see them facing the dismal Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Monday, May 2.