For Rajasthan Royals, Jos Buttler is the metaphoric gift that keeps on giving.
The Englishman hit his third century of IPL 2022, a majestic knock of 116 off 65 balls including nine sixes and nine fours on the way to helping Rajasthan put up 222-2 against the Delhi Capitals at the Wankhede stadium on Friday, April 22, 2022.
Buttler and Devdutt Padikkal shared a 155 run stand for the opening wicket to help RR to the highest team total of the season after being sent into bat.
To say that RR went off to a slow start would be an understatement as the duo struggled in the early overs and by the end of the sixth, Rajasthan was edging along slowly at 29-0.
It was in the sixth over by Khaleel Ahmed where Buttler finally sprung to life and hit two massive sixes to turbo-charge Rajasthan's innings.
The 50 partnership came up towards the end of the 7th over and both batters took turns to go after the bowlers in tandem.
Buttler started slowly before picking up the pace and dealt mostly in fours and sixes against the DC spin duo of Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel to bring up his fifty in 36 balls.
Power-hitting was at its best display as Buttler, in particular, treated all the DC bowlers with disdain.
Padikkal, who hit 54 off 35 balls with seven fours and two sixes, was coming off a rough patch and was a major pillar by Buttler's side all the way until the 16th over when he was finally dismissed -- caught plumb in front of the wicket for an LBW dismissal.
By the time he got out in the penultimate over of the innings, holing out to David Warner after attempting to clear the ropes off Mustafizur Rehman's bowling, the damage had already been done and Rajasthan were on course for a record-breaking total.
Buttler currently stands atop the highest IPL 2022 run-getters list with 491 from seven games at an average of 81.83. Just to put things into perspective, in second place is K L Rahul who has 265 runs at an average of 44.16.
In the post-match comments Buttler took the time to reflect on his innings
'I am enjoying the best form of my life, I need to continue with this form all the way through. The ball swung in the first over and it was a bit tricky. You need to soak up that pressure and come through it. Once you get through it, the confidence comes back. We have managed to build such good partnerships, Devdutt played well from the other end, and we decided to attack and put the pressure back on Delhi.'
