Jos Buttler and KL Rahul are ideally batsmen who should be poles apart. One is a wicket-keeper lower order batsman with 360-degree shots up his sleeve while the other is an opener with good technique and textbook style shots.

Last season, though, Buttler took the IPL by storm, opening the batting and setting a fantastic platform for the middle order. Rahul, on the other hand, was at his berserk best in the powerplays too and teams sought ways to dismiss the two in the powerplays or contain the scoring rate. As the two sides - Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals – face off in the first match of this season, there might just be a very obvious way to stop the powerplay batsmen from either side – bowling spin early.

Last season, in the first six overs of an innings, Rahul made a whopping 364 runs at an average of 91.00 and a strike rate of 157.58. He clubbed 42 fours and 20 sixes in this phase of the innings and was mostly unstoppable for Kings XI at the onset. Buttler, on the other hand, wasn’t dismissed at all in the first six overs despite opening the batting in seven matches.

He made 235 runs in this phase off a mere 121 balls and clubbed 12 maximums and 30 fours. The whopping strike rate of 194.21 made him force to reckon with at the top and it is perhaps no surprise that Rajasthan struggled once he left.



While the supremacy of the two batsmen in the powerplay overs is well established, what remains unclear is how the duo can be stopped.

While raw numbers might reveal that the best way to control them is to restrict the scoring rate, a deeper look shows an evident drop in numbers against spin for both batsmen. While Buttler was brilliant against pace – making 308 runs at an average of 77 and strike rate of 173.03 – his numbers against spin weren’t great. In six of the 10 times he was dismissed, spin proved to be his demise.

He made 240 runs against spin but it came at a much lesser strike rate of 137.14 with the average dropping to 40. The balls/boundary rate against pace and spin also varied vastly. He scored a boundary every 3.95 balls against pace while against spin, it goes up to 6.25 balls.



For Rahul, the numbers aren’t too different. Seven of his 12 dismissals came against spin in 2018 while his strike rate against the spinners remained a healthy 166.67. The strike rate drops to 154.04 against pace but the average difference is too massive to be ignored. Against pace, he averaged 83.8 and clubbed 21 sixes while against spin, the average went down to 34.29.



The common theme to succeed against the two powerplay big hitters seem to be spin. With the Jaipur surface expected to be full of runs, both teams would be sorting out their plans against these two gun players.