The explosive English wicket-keeper batsman, Jos Buttler, in one of his latest interviews, revealed his cricketing idol. The Somerest player held high regard for former Indian skipper, MS Dhoni, as someone who he has followed quite closely as a cricketer. Even in the past, Buttler has been highly vocal about how he has learned to imbibe some of the facets of Dhoni’s game to develop his style of cricket.
Buttler, who plays a similar role for England to what Dhoni did for India, feels inspired by how the Indian veteran has handled himself over the years. Even while finishing an ODI game against Australia in 2018, Buttler mentioned his mindset about drawing a cue or two from Dhoni’s book to stay calm under pressure.
Dhoni has always been my idol, reveals Jos Buttler
Dhoni, who captained India for nearly ten years, was surrounded by a lot of fame and the outside noise for the majority of his career. However, the 38-year was up to the task of not letting it affect his game. And even now when talks of his retirement are making the rounds, the Ranchi-lad is not perturbed even a single bit for it to govern his decision making.
“MS Dhoni has always been a big idol of mine and chaos is always going around him, people wanting a bit of him, the cricket and the noise “….it is such a great lesson to just watch him and see first-hand how to manage all that thing if you have to perform at the top level and perform in those crunch moment, that certainly has been one of the massive pluses,” Buttler told to My Khel.
Jos Buttler, who idolizes Dhoni for his ability to avoid the chaos around him, reckons it as one of the reasons behind Dhoni’s established longevity at the international stage. Buttler even shared his experiences of dealing with pressure while playing as an overseas player for Rajasthan Royals in the IPL.
“It was one of pressures you have to learn, especially in India, as an oversees players, you are one of the four in the team and you know the other four who are not playing are also world class players. So, you are under pressure to perform. So that’s been a great learning curve. One of the things I came out with from the first IPL is to just learn to deal with the chaos,” he concluded.
