Jos Buttler returns to form with a fiery 89, but RR lose the opening qualifier

After having set the IPL 2022 afire with three hundreds and three fifties, Rajasthan Royals’ Jos Buttler had a quiet run towards the end of the league stage. Scores of 22, 30, 7, 2 and 2 did not reflect how he had sent the opposition bowlers into all corners of the ground in the first nine matches.

However, in the crucial Qualifier 1 at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata against Gujarat Titans, Buttler came back to his run-scoring form, scoring 89 runs in 56 balls with 12 fours and two sixes.

The Orange Cap holder began confidently with three well-timed cover-driven fours off Md Shami, two in the first over and one in the third. However, his stroke-making was curtailed by the Titans spinners, especially Rashid Khan, who bowled a brilliant spell, conceding only 12 runs in his first three overs that he bowled between overs No. 7 and 11 and another three in his last over, which was in the 16^th.

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Buttler was contented to play second fiddle and anchor the RR innings as his skipper Sanju Samson and then Devdutt Padikkal went after the bowling, finding the boundaries with ease. So strange was Buttler’s batting that it may have been due to the ball keeping low in that middle-phase that he was unable to play his strokes freely. In his desperate attempt to up the scoring, he went for shots that he could not connect well and was lucky on two occasions.

When on 26, he top-edged Hardik Pandya in the 13^th over that Md Shami did not go for the catch at fine leg. Again, on 69 in the 19^th over off Shami, Rashid ran in from the mid-wicket boundary but failed to hold on to the pull shot.

Buttler’s strange innings could be split into three parts. His first 14 runs came from 8 balls with three fours. Then, in his next 23 balls, he scored 16 runs and did not include a boundary at all. It was during this phase the Samson dominated the second wicket stand worth 68, Buttler chipping in with only 15 in this stand. Again, Padikkal called the shots in the third-wicket stand of 37, the Englishman’s contribution being only 7.

His last 59 runs came only in 25 balls with his fourth four, which came after a 23-ball boundary drought. A flick to square-leg boundary off Pandya in the 15^th over that set the ball rolling for Buttler.

When the death overs began, with Rashid Khan finishing his quota of four overs in the 16^th, Buttler opened up. He went after Yash Dayal in the 17^th over, Alzarri Joseph in the 18^th and Shami in the 19^th. Buttler, who has the maximum sixes in this IPL with 37 before the Play Offs began, added two more, the first coming as late as the 19^th over. Buttler was the central figure in RR accumulating 61 in the last four overs that included 34 from two overs off Dayal.

Buttler staying right till the last over was the key to RR reaching 188. However, his knock had to end up on the losing cause as David Miller ran away with the game with his power hitting in the end for Gujarat Titans.