Dissecting the stats of the English contingent in the 2022 IPL
It is the tournament that can feel like it will never end but, come the conclusion of Sunday’s Indian Premier League final, it was an Englishman who came out on top.
Though CVC Capital Partners’ Gujarat Titans took the title at the first time of asking, Rajasthan Royals’ Jos Buttler took much of the limelight.
His 39 runs off 35 balls in his 17th innings of the 74-match tournament took him to 863 runs – almost 250 more than the next best player – and to the second highest one-season total, behind Virat Kohli’s 973 in 2016.
Buttler was in astonishing form in cricket’s shortest main format, just months after being dropped from the Test squad in January.
But with a brilliant quickfire batsman in Brendon McCullum now at the helm of the English team, an in-form Buttler going well in the IPL may just be what England need.
Buttler’s 863 runs came off 579 balls, 217 of which were dot balls. That means the Taunton-born batter, England’s current one-day vice-captain, averaged a total of 50.7 per innings in this year’s IPL with his official calculated average – where you divide the number of runs by the number of times the batter has been given out – sitting at 57.5.
Buttler has averaged 1.5 runs per ball, too, and if you were to remove those 217 dots, he averaged 2.4 runs from every scoring ball – an astonishing feat.
The great Kumar Sangakkara said of Buttler’s season: “I can’t remember anyone batting this well in the history of the Indian T20 league.” High praise.
Buttler hit the joint most centuries in a season – four – and had the most fours – 83 – and sixes – 45.
He has become the second Englishman in three years to win the best player award after Jofra Archer picked up the gong in 2020. But Buttler was not the only English player to perform on the subcontinent.
Liam Livingstone lit up The Hundred last year before underperforming, along with most other English internationals, in last year’s IPL.
For the Punjab Kings this season, though, he scored 437 runs from his 14 innings at a calculated average of 36.4. He averaged an impressive 1.8 runs per ball, too.
Livingstone is known for hitting big and on more than one occasion he cleared the steep terraces around the grounds to send the crowd into a frenzy.
The all-rounder had time with the ball too, though he didn’t impress as much on the Indian pitches. He took six wickets in 138 balls at an average of over 33 runs. That is a disappointing record for the Lancashire player and something he will no doubt look to improve on this summer now that he’s back in the UK.
Short-form specialist and all-rounder Moeen Ali came in behind Buttler and Livingstone in the IPL batting table but averaged a calculated 24.4 from his 244 in 10 innings. His 24 fours and 11 sixes were reminiscent of the Moeen that has lit up T20 tournaments the world over.
Though he’d have wanted to smash a century, his tournament-high 93 ensured that English selectors remained interested in the player.
He took eight wickets with best figures of 13-3 and an average of 19.75. His eight wickets were the most by any English player in this year’s IPL.
Jonny Bairstow was the last of the English players to feature in 10 innings or more. The Punjab Kings playmaker hit 253 runs at an average of 23.
He hit the second most fours of any English player, though his nine sixes were the fewest of anyone who featured in 10 or more innings.