Jos Buttler credits IPL for Test return

Jos Buttler has credited his re-emergence as a three-format cricketer to the experience gained playing in the Indian Premier League.

Buttler returned to the Test side after an 18-month absence in the Lord’s Test against Pakistan, and scored a fine 67 at the home of cricket. In the Headingley Test thereafter, he went one better, scoring an unbeaten 80 as England won by an innings and 55 runs.

All this from a player who hadn’t played red-ball cricket this year, and went into the two-match Tests series on the back of a busy IPL with Rajasthan Royals, where he finished with five consecutive half-centuries and a 39.

Naturally, there were doubts whether he could make the transition through formats in such a short span of time, but Buttler used that to his advantage.

"Those couple of weeks in the IPL gave me huge amounts of confidence,” he 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.”

The IPL, in fact, had helped him realise the need to accept the occasional failure, and make his peace with them. “In T20 there's generally another game soon after, so you know you've got another opportunity coming up,” he said. “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.

“You guys have to write about it; the Sky commentators have to fill time and they can pick you to pieces. In T20 you just move on to another game two days later. In cricket you fail in your head maybe seven or eight times out of 10. You’re always dealing with failure, which makes it such a tough game to master mentally.”

The mental aspect is what went wrong after an impressive debut in Tests. He scored 85 against India on debut, and then had scores of 70, 45 and 59 in his next few outings. But his form faded in 2015 – he failed to score a half-century in 12 innings – and was dropped, something which he is glad for now.

“I started to think too much about how to not get out, as opposed to how to score runs,” he said. “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.”

All said, however, Buttler is determined to remain grounded. “I’ve only played two Test matches coming back so I’m not going to get too far ahead of myself.”