Meet the man who has helped Jos Buttler transform swiftly between white and red-ball cricket

He might have failed to open his account in the first innings of the Birmingham Test but Jos Buttler’s impressive transformation from a purely white-ball cricketer to red-ball is a lesson worth learning for a lot of players. While the general trend in world cricket today is to learn more about the unconventional forms to suit better to the limited-over formats, Buttler has done the opposite to hone his Test skills.

He had a stupendous run of form in the Indian Premier League (IPL) this year where the wicketkeeper-batsman kept on slamming consecutive fifties for his team – Rajasthan Royals (RR) – but cut short the stint to return home for Tests against Pakistan. He hit half centuries in both Tests in the two-game series to finish as the top scorer from either side.

Vice-captain Buttler

The smooth sailing of the 27-year-old batsman between various formats convinced England selectors and he has been elevated to the position of the vice-captain in the current series against India. It means Buttler’s Test career has not just been rewarded for this remarkable switch but also that he is closer to captaining his side in the longest format.

Buttler, who made his Test debut during the 2014 series against India which England won 3-1, has played only 20 games so far and he averages 35 in the format with no century yet. In the limited overs, the wicketkeeper batsman’s role is more solid as he is being seen as a key man in England’s World Cup campaign next year at home. Buttler has six tons in ODIs at an average of 40 and a strike rate of 117.11.

For his remarkable transformation, Buttler can credit an Indian and he is Anand Chulani, a leading mental conditioning expert, besides RR’s mentor Shane Warne. Buttler claims that Chulani guided him to find the zenith – the zone — and also how to sustain it.

“Jos has always had the talent, but he said that he put a lot of pressure on himself. When you come to the subcontinent for IPL, foreign players have price tag pressure and the need to perform at this stage, it [pressure] can happen. The whole thing was to get him outside of that internal pressure. The game itself has external pressure, why create internal pressure, that’s what I stressed on with him,” India Today quoted Chulani as saying.

“My work with Jos was about actually winning the game inside first. That will create what’s going to happen on the outside and put you in a state of flow. As Jos mentioned we worked on a process, a mental routine he can do to get into that zone. We have much more power over our zone than we think. You think it’s a feeling that comes, you don’t realize that you can actually completely control, influence that thought, feelings and zone. You can actually be in that zone even before you go on the field, before the first ball is bowled,” he added.

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