After a dismal T20 World Cup campaign, Jos Buttler has stated that taking a break from cricket could help him when he looks to start over with the Gujarat Titans (GT) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) later this month.
Even though Buttler’s runs dried up during the T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka—a dry spell for one of the nation’s most notable white-ball batters—the team continued to support the former England captain.
Buttler opened the batting for England at the T20 World Cup, scoring just 87 runs at an average of 10.87 and a dismal strike rate of 116 in eight games. After losing to India in a high-scoring semifinal in Mumbai, England were eliminated from the competition.
The 35-year-old believes that his absence from the game since that March 5 quarterfinal will benefit him going into the IPL, which begins on March 28.
“I couldn’t have been further away from cricket, which for me at the time was just perfect. It’s exactly what I needed,” PTI quoted Buttler as saying on ‘For the Love of Cricket’ podcast.
“Obviously, the tournament didn’t go personally how I’d have liked it to go. I just felt like I needed some space (away) from cricket and not to think about the game, and I could not have been further away from cricket where I was in that week,” he said.
Gujarat Titans, the IPL 2022 champions, will play Punjab Kings in an away game on March 31 to kick off their campaign.
Buttler claimed that the hiatus provided him time to think and was stimulating.
“It was really refreshing — I really enjoyed it — a complete sort of release. Slowly but surely, I’d say at the start of this week, (I am) just starting to reflect a bit and have a few thoughts about what’s important to me and my cricket, and why it probably didn’t go quite as I would’ve liked,” he said.
Buttler claimed that his lack of runs in the T20 World Cup was not the result of a lack of effort because he had spent as much time as possible in the nets attempting to get back into form prior to the quarterfinal match against India. However, another clumsy 25 runs off 17 balls was what that followed.
“There’s elements (to what went wrong) that I actually don’t really know exactly. For all your best intentions and hard work and efforts to perform, it just didn’t work, and sometimes that’s okay as well. That’s something I’ve had to realise. It wasn’t for a lack of effort; it just didn’t quite happen,” he said.
