The English wicket-keeper Jos Buttler feels that the time he spent with the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Rajasthan Royals (RR) in the recently concluded edition has helped him gain confidence in Test cricket. He has been in an incredible run of form in the Test series against Pakistan and has only once not crossed the half century-mark in the four innings that he played. In fact, that was the only the second time in his last nine innings for England and RR.

Talking about his experience with RR, Jos said, “To be in those pressure situations in India, playing in front of crowds, the pressure of being an overseas player. That showed me a lot about where I was at and where I can get to, so that gave me a lot of confidence. For me, not trying to worry about the colour of the ball definitely helps. Having put in good performances elsewhere and not putting as much pressure on myself.”

Buttler’s knocks helped Royals to reach the playoffs of IPL 2018, which also helped him to get recalled for the England Test setup and his absence was clearly felt by the Royals, who lost to Kolkata Knight Riders in the eliminator.

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The belligerent batsman said that going through the motions of T20 cricket has helped him gain confidence in his batting in the longest format of the game. He said, “Now my mentality is quite similar to my first few Tests. I’m not worrying about external factors. I’m just trying to play the game and trusting myself.”

Buttler concluded by saying that being dropped from the Test squad was also a morale booster for him, he said, “In T20 there’s generally another game soon after, so you know you’ve got another opportunity coming up. You probably just move on if you fail. But in Test cricket, if you get out early, you have a long time to think about it. I started to think too much about how to not get out, as opposed to how to score runs. The only real way to get out of it was to be dropped. And actually, being dropped released a lot of pressure. It wasn’t very long after that that I made an ODI hundred in Dubai, which was a turnaround for me after a long and hard six months.”