IPL 2022: Knight and Swann praise Buttler's consistency

Bengaluru, May 2: Former England opener Nick Knight and ex off-spinner Graeme Swann is impressed with the way Rajasthan Royals (RR) star opener Jos Buttler is scoring runs game after game in Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022.

The top-order English batter is on a run-scoring spree in the ongoing IPL 2022 and there is no stopping him.

In IPL 2022, the explosive right-handed batter is leading the Orange Cap race by a margin of more than a hundred runs.

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Knight has applauded Buttler for not taking the success of the previous game every time he walks into the crease and taking his time to get used to the pitch and conditions and then constructs his innings accordingly.

"What impressed me hugely about Jos Buttler is the way he's started every innings. I mean if we look at the outcome of his innings, mostly it's either the 50s or 100s, he's (looking) in a different gear. (But) He tends to forget what he did in the previous game and starts afresh," Buttler said in the Cricket Live show on Star Sports, the official broadcaster of IPL 2022.

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Buttler's Royals take on Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in Match 47 of IPL 2022 at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Monday (May 2).

The Sanju Samson-led RR will hope the defeat to Mumbai Indians in their recent outing was just a minor blip as they look to strengthen their position for a play-off spot.

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This will be the second meeting between the two sides, who locked horns earlier in the season in a high-scoring thriller with RR trumping KKR by seven runs when defending a total of 217 at the Brabourne Stadium on April 18.

Shreyas Iyer's KKR suffered their fifth successive defeat in a row following a four-wicket loss to Delhi Capitals and will be hoping to pull things back.

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Knight added that Buttler has never been complacent.

"(He) Hasn't taken his form for granted at all. He's giving himself a few balls to get in and then play those big shots."

Knight's sentiments were echoed by Swann, who also guarded the Royals against over dependancy on Buttler.

Swann, advised the middle-order batters to start scoring runs in the middle overs.

He reckons scoring at a decent pace in the middle overs will augur well for the teams in the upcoming games as the pitches will slow down at the far end of the tournament while most of RR batters love batting on fast surfaces.

"The worrying thing from Royals' point of view, if there's something they need to worry about, is that at the back end of the tournament the wickets are going to slow down where it'll start skidding more.

"Up until now, they've played on some brilliant batting tracks and the RR batting has been so good that they've won every game. They've been too far ahead of every team. But with the wickets turning and getting slow as the tournament progresses may distract them going forward and they might lose some close games.

"So, they'll have to find a way because it can't always be smash-smash-smash, and they can't heavily rely on Buttler. They need to find a way in the middle overs to score those 10-20 runs extra even in low scoring games."

The KKR vs RR tie begins at 7.30pm with the pre-match telecast starting on 6.30pm on Star Sports and Hotstar.