After Sanju Samson, Jos Buttler carrying Royals’ playoff hopes
MUMBAI: If there’s a side that has been dependent on individual performances and has yet found ways to keep its playoff hopes alive, it has to be Rajasthan Royals. For the uninitiated, the Royals have won six games and on five of those occasions, it was either Sanju Samson or Jos Buttler who
walked away with the Man-of-the-Match award.
It has been a tale of two halves for the duo with Samson carrying the mantle in the first half of the season followed by Buttler in the second. It was Buttler’s third consecutive Man-ofthe-Match performance as he toyed with the Mumbai Indians bowling attack, helping his side chase down 168 with 12 balls and seven wickets to spare.
Buttler’s innings oozed class. Right from the first ball, the Englishman seemed to be on top of his game and continued from where he had left off during his unbeaten knock of 95 against Chennai Super Kings.
While he missed his century by just five runs then, he missed one again on Sunday by six. He wouldn’t mind owing to the results the knocks fetched.
Mumbai looked clueless in their attempt to tackle Buttler. After all, in the pre-match press conference, all that Krunal Pandya had to say on being asked how do they plan to keep Buttler in check was: “If you see the positive side, he has been consistent for the last 3-4 games, so he’s due for one bad game. So I see it in that way like as an opponent.”
For the first three overs, Buttler held back, trying to gauge the bounce of the Wankhede Stadium; which had helped Jofra Archer and Ben Stokes trouble the Mumbai batsmen.
Once settled, he lofted Krunal inside out over the cover region for a boundary. The next one was dislodged over backward square for his first six on the night.
He notched up three consecutive boundaries off the next three overs to keep the scoreboard ticking and the asking rate in check while skipper Ajinkya Rahane did what he does best — assist from the other end.
The two put up 95 for the second wicket in which while Rahane contributed a 36-ball 37, Buttler had 55 off 38 deliveries. He ended the day with nine boundaries and five sixes as he put up a 53-ball 94 to climb to No 5 on the run-getter’s list in this campaign.