Jos Buttler vs SRH: A classic case of match-ups
Once Joe Root, England’s Test skipper compared Jos Butter to South Africa’s AB de Villiers. He was not the first one to do so, and would neither remain the last one, in a world of cricket that is being ruled by the South African maestro and the English swashbuckler, especially when it comes to the shortest format of the game. However, Root’s comparison of ‘demoralising’ the bowling attack, not wrong in one sense, could be interpreted as the fact that Buttler attacks all the bowlers. But this is exactly where he differs from de Villiers and many others. He doesn’t take the attack to each bowler, rather works on the prophecy of ‘match-ups’, which, if not devised, is most utilised by his skipper of the Men’s ODI team, Eoin Morgan. Buttler’s innings in the match between Rajasthan Royals and Sunrisers Hyderabad in the recently postponed Indian Premier League was one in which the 31-year-old wicket-keeper batsman proved that ‘match-ups’ are ruling, and will continue to rule the roost in the limited-overs cricket. The Englishman, after playing, probably the best T20 innings of his life, joked, “I finally will have Alastair Cook stop telling me that he has got one T20 hundred more than me.” But the knock was more than just another hundred, it was a lesson for anyone trying to learn how you build T20 innings. What exactly is a match-up in cricket? As cricket progressed from Test to 50 overs and then to T20s, the importance of ‘How’ you plan to execute a move got narrowed down to ‘What’ move do you plan and ‘When’ do you execute it. The defining change in this transformation is obviously Time or the lack of it. It is with the what and when that the word ‘match-ups’ came into existence. To get a certain player out in T20s or for that matter ODIs, you don’t wait for him to commit mistakes, you make the batter commit those mistakes, by making a bowling change (what) and that too promptly with a particular fieldset or at a particular phase in play (when). Similarly, batters try to work out their matchups as well, and exactly the same way. They either wait for a particular bowler’s spell to end (what) and then another’s to start (when) to play their cards. The masterclass that was Buttler's innings Buttler, in the match against Sunrisers, did exactly that. He waited for a bowler’s (Rashid Khan) spell to end and then lashed on to the rest. But it wasn’t just about lashing on. The most important part was the timing of that lashing on. The Somerset batsman had been struggling in IPL up until that game. He had just two scores of above 40 in six innings and in them too, he struggled to time the ball as well as he is known to. In this innings too, the start was a struggle for the Royals’ vice-captain. At one stage he was eight from 13 balls and then at another stage, he was 35 from 33. Having played 33 balls, England’s limited-overs vice-captain finally started to tee off little by little. His shots started connecting and he was naturally finding the gaps. In the next 31 balls, the Royals’ batsman hit 89 runs, including his second fifty coming off just 17 balls. In his knock of 124 at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi, the Taunton born hit 11 fours and eight humongous sixes. It was Buttler who made all the difference, making sure that the fifth bowler, who was actually a combination of two bowlers, goes for 63 runs. Negotiating Rashid Khan But how was he able to do that in that particular match? This takes the story back to its theme of matchups. When Butter came to bat, he had an average of 9.13 against the whole of SRH, while his average against Rashid Khan, the wily leg spinner, was even worse at 2.5, but somewhat better than was his average (1.0) against the Afghan spinner at the end of 2019. Moreover, Buttler has been struggling against leg-spin more often than not. In an ESPNCricinfo piece, when the record of batters was compared while playing against spin in the period of three IPL seasons between 2018 and 2020, Buttler’s didn’t feature in the list for best batsmen against leg spinners, because to get into the list, the batter had to at least face 60 deliveries of leg-spin and the gloveman failed that criteria. Yes, he had been that bad against leg-spin. But Buttler wanted to improve and he was improving day by day. From getting out to Rashid Khan four times in less than 10 deliveries prior to IPL 2020, the right-hand batter did not give away his wicket to the Afghan dynamite in the last IPL edition. Although at the start of even this IPL, he considered Rashid to be the biggest threat. The problem with Buttler is not the usual leg-spin, rather the googly. Since IPL 2020, Morgan’s deputy has had the worst strike rate on googlies among all types of spin deliveries (more than 10 in number) he faced. Rashid, as everybody knows is a maestro of googlies and the variation in pace with which he bowls them. Thus to negotiate that, much like last year, he chose to remain silent. In the match, the 22-year-old was brought into the attack as early as the third over by captain Kane Williamson, another case of matchups as he wanted to get rid of the dangerman Buttler as quickly as possible. However, as it turned out, the entire first over of Rashid was played by Buttler’s partner at the other end, Yashashvi Jaiswal. In the Nangarhar born’s next over, the English batsman played cautiously, taking just two runs from the four balls that he faced. Negotiating the danger is another case of matchups. While he was taking rearguard action against Rashid, Buttler was detrimental to bring Sanju Samson, who was hitting the ball nicely, on strike against the rest of the bowlers, while he maintained a low profile, trying to work his way through to form. Khan was once again back into the attack in the ninth over and although Buttler did play the majority of the deliveries (5) in this over, he scored only three runs, seeing of the danger once again. With three overs of Rashid already taken care of, when he came on for his final over, which was just the 11th of the innings, the Englishman had won the battle, getting his biggest hurdle out of the game with nine overs to spare. In Rashid’s last over, once again, Buttler faced only two balls. Unleashing the beast After Rahid’s spell was done with, there was no holding back the beast that is Buttler. He was unstoppable, teaching all the younger batsmen how to play the match-up card right. When Mohammad Nabi came into the attack, it was a favourable condition for the right-hander as he is one of the better players off-spin and he showed exactly why. Hitting 20 off Nabi over, the Englishman indicated his intentions. Buttler is more than capable enough of clearing any boundary against pace bowlers, especially against the likes of Sandeep Sharma and Vijay Shankar who hardly offer pace. Since IPL 2020, Buttler’s strike rate has only been lower than run a ball on nip backers and outswingers against the pace bowlers and it was guaranteed that none of it would trouble him past the 12 overs in an innings. That’s exactly what happened as Buttler not only reached his maiden hundred but also played one of the best, most calculated and risk eversive knocks of this year’s IPL.
