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Seven centuries in IPL and all those seven matches are won by his team – that is Jos Butler of England. Of course, he is England’s T20 World Cup winning captain but that is a thing of the past. Butler loves staying in the present. He is completely uncomplicated – exactly the way he bats.
Otherwise, a very soft-spoken man but all his aggression comes calling when he holds the bat in his hand. The best-case example is the way Butler carried his bat for the Rajasthan Royals (RR) against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). With practically no good Indian bowling attack in the line-up, KKR mostly relies on their foreign recruits, but this Rajasthan sign-up is just too good. The only batters who came close to contributing to the team’s historic highest IPL run-chase ever was Riyan Parag with his stroke-filled 34 off 14 deliveries and Rovman Powell’s cameo of 26 off 13 deliveries, otherwise, it was Jos all the way.
Literally and figuratively, Jos’s innings of unbeaten 107 off 60 balls is one of the best knocks in IPL 2024. So, what separates Butler from rest?
It is his ability to strike the ball straight down the ground and then striking the back-of-length deliveries to either side of the wicket. In other words Butler is a complete package. In 2022, he had scored four centuries and almost single-handedly took Rajasthan to play their IPL final only to lose to Gujarat Titans because his fifth century didn’t come on that day. With IPL almost in the middle of the league phase, Jose has around two centuries and three more including one in the final that could be the perfect icing on the cake, right?
