IPL 2022: Jos Buttler Slams Century As RR Beat MI To Maintain Perfect Start

Jos Buttler's manic mayhem was matched in equal measure by spin twins Ravichandran Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal as Rajasthan Royals beat Mumbai Indians by 23 runs in an Indian Premier League (IPL) 2022 match on Saturday. Buttler (100 off 68 balls) scored his second IPL ton off only 66 balls to help the Royals to 193 for 8, which seemed slightly sub-par due to Jasprit Bumrah's (3/17 in 4 overs) brilliant effort.

Ishan Kishan (54 off 43 balls) and unheralded N Tilak Verma (61 off 33 balls) added 81 in 8 overs before Ashwin (1/30 in 4 overs) and Chahal (2/26 in 4 overs) decisively tilted the game in RR's favour between overs 14 to 16 as MI managed only 170 for 8 after 20 overs.

While Royals have now won two out of two, MI have lost both their games in another dismal start to an IPL season.

In the end, there were two factors that combined to bring about MI's downfall.

Firstly, it was Buttler's (11 fours and five sixes) assault against MI's weak-links like Basil Thampi and Murugan Ashwin that made the difference. Three such overs yielded 73 runs and even Bumrah's brilliance didn't seem to be enough in the final context of the match.

And then while bowling, in between overs 14 and 16, Chahal-Ashwin combination gave away only 16 runs and the chase was derailed.

In the last four overs also, Trent Boult (1 for 29 in four overs), Prasidh Krishna (1/37 in 4 overs) and Navdeep Saini (2/36 in 3 overs) kept things tight by not giving Kieron Pollard (22 off 24 balls) any room to free his arms.

All of them, knowing Pollard's weakness against fast wide yorkers, bowled them aplenty to keep the West Indies white-ball skipper under a tight leash.

If there was one plus point for MI, that will be young Tilak Verma, who could be the next big