England wicketkeeper-batter Jos Buttler said that he struggled to cope with the expectations of potentially breaking legendary Virat Kohli’s single-season scoring record during his heroic 2022 IPL season as well. Playing for the Rajasthan Royals (RR), Buttler got off to a great start with three centuries and a half-century in the first seven matches as well. With almost 500 runs at the halfway mark of the league stage, he had a chance to break Kohli’s single-season record of 973 runs, but Buttler managed only one half-century in his next seven innings, including four single-digit scores as well.

Recalling his famous 2022 IPL season, Buttler said on the For the Love of Cricket YouTube channel, “The hard time came when I was on 450 to 500 runs at the halfway stage, and the talk was like, ‘Can he reach Kohli’s record?’ I didn’t deal with that well, actually, and I didn’t tell anybody. Because of that, I got a few low scores. So I went from no expectations before the tournament to people asking if I could break Kohli’s record and score 1000 runs in an IPL season. And that just killed me for a few games.”

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“I finally told Trevor Penney that this and the Orange Cap was really in my head. The stuff you shouldn’t be playing was affecting me. After that, I got my mojo back again in the playoffs. That was a massive season in my career even though I fell well short of Kohli. But at that time, it was the second most in a season and equalled him for the most hundreds in a season. Kohli is the best, so to put yourself in and around that was a huge confidence booster for me,” he further added.

Jos Buttler also shared that he was undercooked and had little to no preparation for his heroic IPL 2022 season because of a finger injury as well.

“It was a COVID IPL, and it was all played in Mumbai. In January, I broke my finger, so I played no cricket coming into the tournament. It weirdly was the best preparation for that IPL. I turned up to that IPL undercooked, really with no expectations, which in hindsight was one of the big plusses,” said Buttler.

“I started that tournament so well and actually had a wobble near the end. I just got in such a rhythm, and Sangakkara was a really good coach, and he just told me not to force it early. He said even if someday I was 30 off 30, not to force it and just wait until I felt it and was going. Also, all the games were in Mumbai with good batting surfaces,” he concluded.