Jos Buttler scored the first century of the T20 World Cup 2021. The wicketkeeper-batter’s maiden T20I century is the second century by an English batter in T20 World Cup over the years. Buttler is the ninth batter in the world to hit a century in the 14-year history of T20 World Cup. He also became the first English batter to score a century in all three formats of the game.
Opening the innings for England, Buttler helped his side recover from a shaky start losing three wickets for 35 in the powerplay overs. The century-run stand with skipper Eoin Morgan helped England recover and post a total of 163/4. In the last eight overs, England added 102 runs to the score. He reached his half-century from 45 deliveries but took just 22 more deliveries to reach the three figures. He got to his century off the last ball of the innings with a six over deep square leg boundary.
Another record
Buttler took 67 deliveries to reach the milestone making it the slowest century in T20 World Cup history. The record for previous slowest belonged to former Sri Lankan skipper Mahela Jayawardene who took 63 deliveries to score his century against Zimbabwe in 2010. Buttler has also faced the most number of deliveries by a batter in a T20 World Cup match. Chris Gayle and Marlon Samuels have faced 66 balls each in 2010 and 2016 editions respectively.
The 31-year-old shared a 112-run partnership for the fourth wicket with Morgan. It is also the joint-highest fourth-wicket partnership for England in the format.
Interestingly, Morgan was a part of the other 112-run partnership as well with Kevin Pietersen in 2010 against Sri Lanka. Also, the first century by an English batter in T20 World Cup by Hales came against Sri Lanka in 2014 edition of the tournament.
Buttler is also the second wicketkeeper-batter to score a century in T20 World Cup. Former New Zealand skipper Brendon McCullum achieved the feat in 2012 edition with 123-run knock against Bangladesh.
