IPL 2022: Excited To Share The Dressing Room And Bat With Jos Buttler - Devdutt Padikkal

Indian batter Devdutt Padikkal said that he is excited to share the dressing room with England wicketkeeper-batter Jos Buttler at Rajasthan Royals in IPL 2022. Buttler was one of the three players alongside Sanju Samson and Yashasvi Jaiswal to be retained by the Rajasthan outfit during the IPL 2022 players’ retention list.

Buttler joined the Royals from Mumbai Indians in 2018 since then he has scored 1441 runs in 41 matches at an impressive strike rate of 151.52. Buttler scored a scintillating knock of 124 off 64 balls against Sunrisers Hyderabad in IPL 2021 as the Royals won by 55 runs.

Jos Buttler is just one of those meteoric cricketers: Devdutt Padikkal

Rajasthan Royals purchased Padikkal for a price of INR 7.75 crore in the IPL 2022 auction. Padikkal expressed his wish to bat alongside Buttler and meet him in the team dressing room.

“I’m really excited to share the dressing room with Jos Buttler. He is just one of those meteoric cricketers – almost like how AB (de Villiers) was at Bangalore. He has that impact on the opposition bowling and I’m looking forward to batting with him,” Padikkal was quoted as saying by a release by RR.

Coming to a new franchise, I was a little bit nervous: Devdutt Padikkal

Padikkal garnered attention for his batting prowess with the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the last two seasons, his fearless approach to take on the bowlers made him a prospective future of the Indian team.

The southpaw amassed 884 runs in 29 matches for RCB at a strike rate of 125.04 and scored 101 against Royals last year in an IPL 2021 match in Mumbai. Padikkal admitted that he was earlier nervous to switch to a new IPL team but felt comfortable after joining the Royals’ camp and also expressed his willingness to open the innings.

“Coming to a new franchise, I was a little bit nervous but everyone’s made me feel at home straight away, and I couldn’t have asked for anything better,” he said.

“I’m always open to batting according to what the team demands of me. T20 is such a format that you need to be flexible and you need to be able to adapt to different conditions,” he added.

Rajasthan Royals will play their first match against Sunrisers Hyderabad on March 29 at the Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA) Stadium in Pune.

Also Read: IPL 2022: In Terms Of Ravichandran Ashwin And Jos Buttler, I Believe That Rivalry Was Electric – RR’s Kumar Sangakkara