IPL 2023: Best XI from second week

The second week of IPL 2023 has to be among the most exciting weeks in the history of the league. The week started with a low-scoring one-sided fixture between LSG and SRH and ended with the contest between Punjab Kings versus Gujarat Titans.

Between these two fixtures, we witnessed plenty of last-over finishes, with four fixtures going down to the very last ball. In the second week, Rinku Singh announced himself on the big stage, Anrich Nortje gave an exhibition of death bowling, MS Dhoni turned back the clock, and Rahul Tewatia showed yet again that he has nerves of steel.

Let us build a playing 11 of the players who played their part in making the second week of the ongoing tournament memorable.

1. Jos Buttler - wk (Rajasthan Royals)

England’s experiment with Jos Buttler with the red ball has seemingly hurt his legacy. Otherwise, there is no reason that the English wicketkeeper-batter is not considered among the greatest white-ball cricketers of all time.

Every year we see Buttler coming to the IPL and casually butchering the bowlers in the powerplay, then intelligently taking some time in the middle overs, before launching another assault in the death. The last part was missing in the last week, so we only saw two half-centuries at a strike rate of around 150.

For any other batter, this would be a fantastic week, for Buttler it is par for the course. A century might be around the corner in the next week.