Buttler century downs Hyderabad

Jos Buttler smashed the first century of his T20 career to help the Rajasthan Royals beat the Sunrisers Hyderabad by 55 runs in Delhi. The Englishman scored a stunning 124 runs off 64 balls which included eleven 4s and eight 6s to propel Rajasthan to 220 in the first innings and hand the Royals their third victory of the season.

Despite scoring a century, Buttler had a shaky start to the innings and was far from his fluent best in the powerplay. The Englishman lived a charmed life early on and was lucky not to be dismissed not once but twice by Rashid Khan in the opening exchanges. SRH weren’t able to review an LBW appeal that was hitting the stumps and Vijay Shankar misjudged a catch at long-on to give Buttler one more life.

After going at a run a ball in the powerplay, Buttler made the most of his good fortune and eventually kicked into gear in the 7th over with a towering six over mid-wicket. Buttler and Samson took the wise decision of playing out Rashid Khan while looking to take the attack to the rest of the bowlers. Buttler shared a 150 run partnership with the Royals captain and went nuclear towards the death overs to push Rajasthan above the 200 run mark.

Buttler took 21 runs off Mohammad Nabi’s only over of the game before eventually reaching his century off 56 balls. The Englishman proceeded to score another 24 runs from the penultimate over from Sandeep Sharma as Rajasthan scored an unprecedented 107 runs from the final 7 overs.

Despite Mumbai chasing down 218 in the previous game, this chase was always going to be an uphill task for the Sunrisers. Manish Pandey and Jonny Bairstow got the Men in Orange off to a good start in the powerplay but they both were dismissed in quick succession which derailed Hyderabad’s chase and handed them their 6th loss of the season.

The Sunrisers made the controversial decision to drop their captain David Warner for this game after his poor run of form to start the season but the change in combination failed to pay dividends in this match. Mohammad Nabi was brought in to replace Warner to aid the SRH bowling lineup and middle-order but the all-rounder only bowled one over in the game which went for 21 runs and was dismissed for 17. Change of captaincy mid-way through the season normally never proves to be fruitful but with the Sunrisers languishing at the bottom of the table, they will be hoping that this new combination and balance proves to be the solution they are looking for.