Going into Tuesday’s match, Jos Buttler has the most runs and most sixes in IPL 15. His strike rate year-on-year, for past six IPLs has remained around 150. He’s equally destructive in T20I’s. For those who have forgotten his unbeaten ton in the T20 World Cup tie against Sri Lanka last November, Buttler served a timely reminder with another century against Mumbai Indians on Saturday.
Jos Buttler of Rajasthan Royals celebrates after scoring a half century (IPL)
Never shy to ramp, scoop or cut, Buttler also expertly uses the depth of the crease to hit bowlers over the straight boundaries. While such an array of strokes cannot come without putting in the hard yards in the nets, equally integral to Buttler’s success is the importance he devotes to mental conditioning.
Which is why other than the experts he works with in the England set up, Buttler also utilises the services of Anand Chulani, a Mumbai-based mind coach who has had stints with Rajasthan Royals and Punjab Kings in the past. “Cricketers’ practice so much around their skills. But who you are comes out between two deliveries. Are you fearful, courageous, what kind of person you are? What kind of person you are off the field comes out when you are under pressure. That’s where Jos strives to excel,” said Chulani.
To win those high stakes mental battles, sportspersons visualise, use verbal triggers. For Ajinkya Rahane it could be a simple ‘watch the ball’. Buttler as the world discovered a few years back, has a colourful message written in bold on his bat handle:‘F*** It’.
“It’s just something that reminds me of what my best mindset is—when I’m playing cricket, and probably in life as well,” Buttler has said. “It puts cricket in perspective. When you nick off, does it really matter?” Buttler’s philosophy being, those words would ‘bring him back to a good space’.
For all his white-ball success, Buttler has been in search for consistency in Test cricket. “When there was so much talk around him on white-ball and red-ball, I told him, ‘forget all that, just be you’,” said Chulani.
“A lot of the time, I am reminding athletes what they already know but had forgotten. When I worked with Virender Sehwag in the IPL, he had achieved all that he had to. All I was doing was reminding him what he had. Remember, you are talking about human beings in a high-pressure environment like IPL. Of alignment of different cultures.”
Chulani said most people come to him when they are down but counted Buttler as a lifelong learner.
“It’s not that Jos got a learning mindset because he met me. He connected with me because he wanted to improve. We are always in touch. But there are times when I stay out of his way and not overcomplicate.”
“A lot of athletes think when I win the trophy, I am a champion. My whole work is to help them feel that they are a champion before they go out to bat. That’s what I teach,” Chulani said. “I am not there to pump them up. My goal is for the athlete to create unconscious competence. Where they don’t need to trigger themselves, the state is just there. The trigger becomes part of their natural state of being.”
Despite his essentially attacking game fetching a middling record in Test cricket, Buttler has also conjured innings like his self-denying 207-ball 26 on the final day in the recent pink ball Ashes Test at Adelaide. “You are greater than your skill. You may have the most skilled person but with self-doubts you cannot win a match. Character plus skills wins you matches,” said Chulani.
The mind coach predicted an England captaincy stint for Buttler after Eoin Morgan. “That could prove to be an interesting facet of his development,” said Chulani. For now, Buttler is acting as a sounding board for Rajasthan Royals captain Sanju Samson and acing with the bat. Occasionally, when he has to play a battling innings, like a phase he encountered during his recent knock against Royal Challengers Bangalore, Buttler turns to his bat handle to put things in perspective.
Rasesh Mandani loves a straight drive. He has been covering cricket, the governance and business side of sport for close to two decades. He writes and video blogs for HT.
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