2 hours ago
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Perhaps Buttler's greatest strength is his lack of weakness against any particular form of bowling.
Against seam from either hand and versus off-break and slow left-arm spin, the difference in his average is within a margin of a run, sitting between 37 and 38.
Only against leg-break bowling does his average tail off a little, but only to a still respectable 31.31, while he is prolific against the uncommon left-arm unorthodox spin, averaging 48.20.
His boundary ball percentage is marginally better against seam, sitting in the low 20s as opposed to the mid-teens against spin.
His strike-rate is best against the right-arm seamers, against whom he has scored almost 50% of his runs - reflective of the type of bowlers he faces in the powerplay.
Buttler is particularly dismissive of the short ball - averaging 74 against it since 2021 - while of players to have more than 500 runs in the same period, only Pakistan's Mohammad Rizwan averages more against short-pitched bowling.
It's quite staggering that fellow white-ball legends Trent Boult, Matt Henry and Sam Curran have never dismissed Buttler in T20 cricket and only two men have got the better of him more than five times - India duo Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Varun Chakaravarthy.
Afghanistan's Rashid Khan has the best strike-rate against Buttler - removing him six times in just 82 deliveries.
"He's captained and played all around the world and he's been a marquee player," said Malan.
"When you are the marquee player in the team, you get paid the most and the expectation from the owners, captains, coaches and team-mates is that you're going to go out and score runs every single time - and the pressure that comes with that is immense.
"His whole life, he's been able to deal with pressure. That just makes it all the more remarkable what he's done."
