After scoring back to back fifties in successive tests against Pakistan, Jos Buttler has credited his stint with the Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League as the main reason behind his successful comeback to the tests.
After lighting up the IPL with some breathtaking hitting, he has continued his rich vein of form in the ongoing test series, with scores of 67 in Lords, followed by an unbeaten 80 in Leeds. It comes after a surprise inclusion in the England squad, having not scored a first class century since 2014.
“Those couple of weeks in the IPL gave me huge amounts of confidence,” Buttler 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.”
With 20 Tests under his belt, the 27-year-old believes he is in a better place mentally to cope with the demands of five-days cricket.
“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.
“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.”
Being dropped from the squad, he felt, was a blessing in disguise.
“I started to think too much about how to not get out, as opposed to how to score runs. I got in a really bad rut that I just couldn’t get out of. 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.”