Jos Buttler is a likely addition to IPL 2016
Trevor Bayliss, the English Cricket team coach has made his support for Jos Buttler to appear in this year’s IPL. The former Australian cricketer is impressed with Jonny Bairstow’s performance and said that the latter is more likely to feature in the test squad during New Zealand’s tour of England. This leaves Buttler free during May and June, 2016 and coach Bayliss considers that he could put this time to better use playing in the IPL.
"If the opportunity arises and Buttler is not in the Test team and that IPL window is a possibility, I'd be all for it," Bayliss said.
Bairstow’s fine knock of an unbeaten 150 in Cape Town had taken England from a precarious position and gained them the upper hand in their test match against South Africa. This made the wicket-keeping batsman the first choice for the England test squad against New Zealand, leaving Buttler an unused member of the team.
Butller has the backing of the coach to put his name forward for the IPL auction, the last date for which is January 15. The England management is keen on giving their limited overs players more experience in T20 leagues around the world and Buttler is free to play in the IPL if he attracts interest for himself from one of the teams. According to the reports from ESPNCrickinfo, Kolkata Knight Riders are particularly interested in signing him.
A similar decision was made by England management recently for Adil Rashid. The 27-year-old leg spinner was allowed to take part in the Big Bash when he was deemed unnecessary for the team’s tour of South Africa.
Bayliss said, "It's something we've spoken about. Personally I'd think it would be something similar along the lines of Adil Rashid. If Jos is in the Test team he'll be playing Test cricket for England. He definitely wants to play more Test cricket for England which is great. But obviously Jonny's there at the moment."
Bayliss is also impressed with Bairstow’s wicket keeping and called it ‘pretty well’. However, he thinks that the 26-year-old’s wicket keeping is a work in progress and could be improved. He said, "Certainly his wicketkeeping is a work in progress, but I think our other wicketkeepers are as well. Plenty of other wicketkeepers around the world have started off their international careers not in the greatest fashion but ended up pretty decent keepers. It's only fairly early in Jonny's wicketkeeping career. He works very, very hard at it and I'd expect over a period of time for him to get better. Both Jonny and Jos work terribly hard on their keeping. He (Bairstow) knows the number one reason he is in the team is to keep wicket. So that is definitely a focus of ours: to make him better, as it is with Jos as well.”