IPL 2022: Jos Buttler hammers first hundred of IPL 15; Rajasthan Royals in command

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Mumbai, April 2: Jos Buttler of Rajasthan Royals hammered the first hundred of the IPL 2022 on Saturday (April 2) against Mumbai Indians and guided his side to a commanding position.

Buttler, who had made a hundred in the ICC T20 World Cup 2021 for England, continued his good touch for Royals too and cracked the MI bowling attack in stunning fashion.

The feature of Buttler’s onslaught was the Englishman plundering 26 runs from MI pacer Basil Thampi’s over in a sequence of 0, 4, 6, 6, 4, 6. This was Buttler’s second IPL hundred and has joined the likes of Virat Kohli, Chris Gayle, Hashim Amla, M Vijay, AB de Villiers etc as batsmen with more than one hundred in the IPL.

While Manish Pandey of India is the first batsman to score a hundred in the IPL, way back in 2009 in South Africa.

Buttler and skipper Sanju Samson stitched together a wonderful alliance for the 3rd wicket that gave the Royals a lot of steam in the middle overs after losing Devdutt Padikkal and Yashasvi Jaiswal inside the Power Play overs.

The pitch was a silken smooth to bat one as was indicated by former India batsman Rohan Gavaskar to the Star Sports ahead of the match.

“This is the third game at the DY Patil Stadium and it is a third new pitch, a fresh pitch. We have seen two different scores here, the first game saw a score in excess of 200 while the second was below 130, the reason being the bounce.

“This (new pitch) is a good one to bat on. There will be runs scored but like in the previous pitch the lengths will be the key. If the bowlers hit the right lengths then the batters will find it a little bit tougher,” he said.

And it turned out to be so true as Buttler made a curry of Mumbai attack with a brutal assault and cruised to his hundred.