Kisma Feature-England Cricket benefits from Indian Premier League: Jonny Bairstow and Jos Buttler agree

While most Englishmen believe IPL to be only a cash-rich league and affect players' game in red-ball format, England players participating in IPL over their domestic league or international fixtures face a considerable backlash. It became one of the reasons why over the past 2-3 years, we have seen English players withdrawing from the Indian T20 league. However, despite facing such criticism, a few players kept IPL above as they believed it to give them only a positive cricketing experience.  

Jonny Bairstow

The English wicketkeeper-batsman has been an integral part of IPL for a long time. However, for a long time, he struggled with his poor form in domestic and international cricket. But this IPL season has been an excellent opportunity for Jonny Bairstow to regain his lost form! 

Jonny Bairstow was one of those players who chose IPL over county cricket. Unlike most the England players, he believes that IPL has provided him with a better ground for Test preparation than red-ball practice in the County Championship. 

Struggling with his form at number 3 with Punjab Kings, skipper Mayank Agarwal sacrificed his opening spot for Jonny Bairstow, helping the batter revive his form. He then scored 253 runs in the 11 IPL matches, averaging 23. And soon after IPL, he was included in the test series against New Zealand. While he lost his wicket twice cheaply, he retained the team's faith and smashed one of the best and quickest centuries to help England grab a second Test win over the Kiwis.

After breaking 120-year-old Gilbert Jessop's record of fastest Test century by an Englishman, he said, "There were a lot of people saying I should not be at the IPL and should be playing county cricket. But you are playing against the best in the world in the IPL, and to have those gears, and being able to switch them up and down, is important."

He added, 'People say it would be fantastic if you had four games of red-ball cricket under your belt before a Test series but unfortunately that doesn't happen with current scheduling and we're very fortunate to be able to play in some of the best competitions around the world.'

Praising the batter, Virender Sehwag wrote, "Jonny Bairstow, an innings of a lifetime, one of the best counter-attacking 4th innings you will ever see.Well done England , Test Cricket is Best Cricket. #ENGvNZ."

Michael Vaughan tweeted, "This is utterly ridiculous... Last time I saw this type of drama was in 2019 when Jonny was sat on the balcony watching Ben .. Now Ben has the best seat in the house watching Jonny .. #ENGvNZ."

Jos Buttler

Jos Buttler was one of the two retained England players in IPL 2022. He was striving to score runs with his bat. Before being retained by the franchise, he played at an average of 36.28 in previous editions. However, the faith shown by the team management in the opener reaped mesmerising results for the team and player in the form of his swashbuckling tenure of 863 runs in 17 matches to win Orange Cap and Most Valuable Player in the tournament. 

On 17th June 2022, England shattered their record of the highest score in ODIs in the first ODI against the Netherlands. And the chief architect of that destruction was Jos Buttler, who continued his hard-hitting form to score an unbeaten 162 off 70 deliveries at a mammoth strike rate of 231.42. 

On helping the team grab a hands-on massive 232-run victory, Jos Buttler credited IPL for his scintillating form and said, "The IPL couldn't have gone better for me, coming here in good touch, good wicket, license to attack. The 31-year-old batter has been playing a hurricane of knocks since the beginning of IPL 2022, and there's no stopping the delight that it brings. The World T20 went well, the Ashes was tough, I had two months of no cricket, very refreshing, turned up to the IPL with lots of motivation, energy and drive to get the best out of yourself."

Twitter exploded with heaps of praises for the youngster following his great knock. Some of the tweets that grabbed attention are:

Amit Mishra wrote, "A game of cricket that even EA cricket can't compete against. Extraordinary batting by England to score record-breaking 498 runs in an ODI match. Not to forget outstanding innings by Jos Butler. #ENGvsNED."

"England have made 160 in 10 overs. Wonder if they think this is the last session of a test match!," tweets Harsha Bhogle