England captain Jos Buttler sets unwanted IPL record

On Sunday, England captain Jos Buttler set an undesirable record in the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Buttler, who plays for Rajasthan Royals (RR) in the IPL, fell for a two-ball duck in his side's crushing 112-run loss to Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the IPL 2023. Fast bowler Wayne Parnell dismissed the opening batter in the second over, leaving RR at 6 for 2, with the other opener Yashasvi Jaiswal also walking back without scoring a run.

It was the fourth duck of Buttler, England's T20 World Cup-winning captain, in the ongoing campaign. With that, he claimed the joint record for most duck dismissals in a single IPL season. Prior to the Englishman, six other players had also registered four ducks in an IPL season, including Shikhar Dhawan, who is the second-leading run-scorer in IPL history with 6,600 runs.

Buttler also became just the second England batter to claim the unwanted record after former captain Eoin Morgan, who had scored four ducks in a single IPL season while playing for Kolkata Knight Riders.

Full list of players with 4 ducks in an IPL season:

Herschelle Gibbs (Deccan Chargers, 2009)

Mithun Manhas (Pune Warriors India, 2011)

Manish Pandey (Pune Warriors India, 2012)

Shikhar Dhawan (Delhi Capitals, 2020)

Eoin Morgan (Kolkata Knight Riders, 2021)

Nicholas Pooran (Sunrisers Hyderabad, 2021)

Jos Buttler (Rajasthan Royals, 2023)

Buttler's struggles hurting RR

It was Buttler's second consecutive dismissal without scoring a run in the underway campaign. In RR's previous game, which they won by nine wickets, thanks to Jaiswal's fireworks at Eden Gardens, Buttler was run out before he could go off the mark.

The sudden drop in Buttler's form is certainly hurting RR, last season's finalists. The English captain started off IPL 2023 on a high but has not managed to continue the momentum. He is 10th in the Orange Cap race with 392 runs in 13 matches at an average of 30.15 and strike-rate of 141.

RR have also fallen out of the top four in the IPL 2023 table and are in the seventh spot with 12 points from 13 games. They have one group game remaining and their chances of making the playoff now majorly depends on the results of the teams above them such as RCB, Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), and Mumbai Indians (MI).

Buttler's ongoing struggles are contradictory to his performance last season, where he had wreaked havoc with the bat. He won the Orange Cap in IPL 2022 as he finished as the top-scorer with an incredible 863 runs, 247 runs more than KL Rahul who finished second in the runs table. Buttler struck four centuries and as many fifties last season.

RR's crushing loss vs RCB

Meanwhile, on Sunday, Shimron Hetmyer was RR's best batter against RCB in their chase of 172. The West Indian scored a 19-ball 35, while England's Joe Root scored 10. The remaining batters of RR either got out for a single-digit score or for a duck as the 2008 champions got bowled out for a mere 59 runs, which was the third-lowest total in IPL history. Interestingly, RR also holds the record for the second-lowest total in IPL – 58, which also had come against the same opponent RCB in 2009 in Cape Town.

Fast bowler Parnell was RCB's hero as he finished with figures of 3 for 10 in three overs. He bagged the crucial scalps of Buttler, RR captain Sanju Samson, and Root. Mohammed Siraj set the tone for RCB by dismissing in-form Jaiswal in the first over of RR's chase. The home side never really recovered from there as they went five down before the end of the powerplay overs.

Speaking at the post-match press conference, Parnell credited RCB's batters for the victory.

"Obviously, credit to our batters. The last over gave us momentum. We could execute well. The message was to take pace off the ball. Bowl it at the sticks. We were able to execute everything. The surface was low, slow, and skiddy. Was trying to make them play across the line. When I wasn't playing, I was preparing. It is a long tournament and you need to be switched on every game," the South African bowler added.