"We've reaped the rewards" - Jos Buttler on English stars playing franchise cricket

Jos Buttler believes that it's a "really good feather in the cap of English cricket to see that English cricketers are in demand to play in the world’s premier T20 tournament"

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With two T20 World Cups on the horizon, Jos Buttler believes that having so many English players involved in the Indian Premier League can only be a good thing.

“I think it’s a huge advantage,” says Buttler. “We’ve reaped the rewards of more players being exposed to franchise tournaments.

“That’s been talked about quite a lot off the back of the World Cup – the exposure to the IPL, Big Bash, Pakistan Super League with our players going away and performing in high pressure situations not only benefits the individual but the England team when they come back to playing in that side.

“The wealth of experience that everyone can bring back to the England side is magnified and when you’re performing in these tournaments it gives you a lot of confidence,” he added.

With that being said, there is a tremendous amount of pressure on each and every player to perform in these franchise competitions due to the amount of money each lucrative contract is worth. A bad tournament could see you miss the next one and the opportunity to earn even more money gone.

One player who has risen to the challenge is Buttler’s Rajasthan Royals and England team-mate Jofra Archer. Archer has taken three wickets and scored 46 runs in three matches down the order.

Of Archer, Buttler explains: “There’s a lot of pressure on him to perform because he’s one of the stars of the tournament and one of the stars in our team.

“There’s monetary pressure as well at the IPL; everyone knows how much someone like Jofra has gone for and the owners that pay that money expect a certain level of performance.

“I think T20 cricket, not just for Jofra but for all of us is a lot of fun; it allows you to go and express yourself without much fear of failure and you have freedom.”

Prior to England’s 50-over World Cup triumph last summer, there was a change in mentality for Trevor Bayliss’ side and more energy and time was invested in the format to bring it to the same level as Test cricket.

With so much T20 cricket to be played over the next two years or so, Buttler believes that the same mentality must be adapted for the shortest format in the international game moving forward.

“There’s no coincidence that we’ve had the results we’ve had in 50-over cricket because of the time, energy and effort that we put into that format and bringing it onto a par with Test cricket.

“I think that should be the same with T20 cricket,” he adds. “There’s an advantage of T20 cricket of being able to get guys exposure in franchise tournaments. Guys can get a lot of game time in T20 cricket from those tournaments.

“What else is important leading into two World Cups is that when we head into international T20s with England we need to be playing our strongest team. Through the 50-over World Cup we had a really settled sides, everyone knew their roles and we played together for a long period of time and we need that in the T20 side; there are many similar players and in T20 cricket it would be great to have our strongest 11 or 15 around leading into the World Cup.”

_{Jos Buttler batting for England}

T20 cricket is renowned for its powerful hits and huge sixes. During the current edition of the IPL we’ve seen 174 sixes in the 12 matches played so far.

The smallest playing surface in the edition this year is Sharjah in the UAE and Buttler feels a sense of added pressure when he plays there.

“Sharjah is certainly one of those six hitting grounds,” laughs Buttler. “As we saw from a couple of other games, usually the team who hits the highest number of sixes is up there for winning the game.

“I almost think of playing against West Indies in T20 cricket sometimes as hitting sixes is their main focus of how they go about winning games and at Sharjah that could become a theme,” Buttler admits.

“I think the wickets can get slower and as the tournament goes on, because they’re only using three grounds, used wickets will become a feature of the tournament so it could become a little harder to step hit.

“The other two grounds are generally a bit bigger, but the six hitting shows that if you have the capability then you can make your run quite late to try and win the game.”

Away from the action, like what we saw in the English international summer, the teams are in a bubble and when asked how the England and Rajasthan bubbles compared, Buttler says: “They’re a little different. It’s obviously a little warmer here and in my opinion it’s nice here because you wake up away from the ground.

“It’s a bit easier to get away from the cricket and it’s been great because I’ve managed to have my family here as well which is nice. We’ve been very well looked after; we’ve got a beach and pool that we can use at certain times and tennis courts too."

With the tournament being held behind closed doors, there are obviously no fans but Buttler says that that doesn’t affect how the game is played despite the atmosphere is part of the attraction for a tournament as big as the IPL.

“I’ve watched a few games on TV and it actually comes across really well. It’s a really good viewing product with the noise and if you’ve got it on in the background it sounds like a normal game.

“There have been some really good games so far; the quality of cricket is really good and having spoken to a number of guys who haven’t played for five or six months and knowing just how excited to be back is fantastic."

Watch the Rajasthan Royals take on Royal Challengers Bangalore in the teams next Dream11 IPL match on Sky Sports – Saturday 3rd October 11:00