Gujarat Titans’ (GT) wicketkeeper-batter Jos Buttler picked his all-time ultimate Indian Premier League (IPL) XI. Buttler was asked to pick form a pool of IPL legends by his former teammate Stuart Broad on their 'For the Love of Cricket' podcast. Interestingly, six-time IPL champion Rohit Sharma did not find a place along with Ravindra Jadeja, Dwayne Bravo, Yuzvendra Chahal and Bhuvneshwar Kumar.
Firstly, Buttler was asked to pick the two openers among Rohit, Virat Kohli, Chris Gayle and himself. He picked Kohli and Gayle. He went on to call Gayle as the best T20 batter.
"For those two out of there, I'm going to go for Kohli for sheer weight of runs and consistency and also that season where he scored 970-odd runs in a season of the IPL, which is outrageous. So I'm going to have him as number one and his opening partner for me will be Chris Gayle. I think Chris Gayle is the best T20 batter that there's been. I don't think there's more intimidating guy you could bowl at," said Buttler.
Then, Broad asked him to pick the middle-order batters. Dinesh Karthik faced the snub as the Englishman picked Suresh Raina, AB de Villiers and Kieron Pollard. There was no argument between the two on who should be the captain of the side. They unanimously picked MS Dhoni.
Buttler’s toughest challenge
It was followed by Buttler’s toughest pick in his ultimate IPL XI. He picked ‘Superman’ Andre Russell over Ravindra Jadeja. He pointed how Jadeja has been the clutch player, referring to the IPL 2024 final where he scored 10 runs off just two balls against his current team. However, KKR’s current ‘power coach’ edged past Russell.
Current and former teammate snubbed
In the bowling department, he snubbed current teammate Kagiso Rabada, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and former teammate Yuzvendra Chahal who is also the leading wicket-taker in league's history. In addition, he gave a special mention to Dwayne Bravo.
"Maybe in the all-rounders bracket and bowlers, there's a notable omission. Dwayne Bravo, I think, was incredible for being close to an all-time... And a winner as well. ... you can see he was up there with taking the most wickets as well for a long time. So he's an honourable mention," the 35-year-old stated.
It is to be noted that Buttler and Broad didn’t follow the rule of having a maximum of 4 overseas players in the team. Also, De Villiers and Gayle are two players who never won an IPL title.
Jos Buttler’s Ultimate IPL all-time XI -
Virat Kohli, Chris Gayle, Suresh Raina, Ab de Villiers, Kieron Pollard, MS Dhoni (c & wk), Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Rashid Khan, Sunil Narine, Jasprit Bumrah, Lasith Malinga.