Jos is best white-ball opener in world cricket: Sangakkara

PTI, Apr 7, 2024, 9:05 AM IST

Kumar Sangakkara (Credit: BCCI / iplt20.com)

Jaipur: Virat Kohli may be leading the IPL charts with 316 runs as an opener, but Rajasthan Royals’ head coach Kumar Sangakkara feels that Jos Buttler is, by far, the best white ball opener in world cricket.

Buttler was back in form with a 58-ball-100 not out as Rajasthan easily beat Royal Challengers Bengaluru by six wickets despite Kohli’s eighth IPL hundred.

Asked about England limited overs skipper’s return to form, Sangakkara said: ”Jos is the best white-ball opener in the world, and all he needed to do was sit back and ignore some of the noise.” Buttler, on his part, agreed there was anxiety with his poor run of form in recent times.

”However long you’ve played the game, you still have those anxieties and stresses. Sometimes you just have to tell yourself it’ll be okay.

”Just keep digging in, working hard, at some point we will be okay. I actually did feel really good in the last game, even though I only scored 13 or something.”

Riding on Kohli’s century, RCB posted 183/3 but Royals took 19.1 overs to chase the target and secure their fourth win on the trot.

RCB skipper Faf du Plessis felt they were 15 runs short but also conceded that batting became better in the second innings.

”I did feel we could have maximised 10 or 15 more towards the end. It was a good toss to win, you did see that it played much nicer with the dew.”

”We tried, but it was quite tricky to hit. With the spinners, a lot of balls were hitting the bottom of the bat. I think the pitch definitely got better. That’s what dew does, that’s the nature of the wicket. I thought it was a good toss for them to win,” he added.