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England’s star batsman Jos Buttler has finally broken his silence on batting at number four during Gujarat Titans’ painful defeat to Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL 2026 final in Ahmedabad.
Many cricket experts and fans were left confused and stunned when young batsman Nishant Sindhu was sent ahead of Buttler during the crucial stage of the IPL 2026 final. Now, Buttler revealed that he was actually ready to bat at No. 3, but the GT team management had a different plan.
Jos Buttler opens up on Gujarat Titans’ controversial decision in IPL 2026 final vs RCB
Recently, Jos Buttler revealed that he was already prepared and even ready to leave the dugout as soon as Gujarat Titans captain Shubman Gill got out, but head coach Ashish Nehra decided to send Nishant Sindhu as he did not get much chances to bat in the upper order.
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Interestingly, this was not the first time that Butler was stopped. Gujarat Titans had sent Sindhu ahead of the former England captain a few more times in IPL 2026, but doing so in the final surprised everyone as he was one of the most experienced T20 batsmen in the world at the top of the order.
Jos Buttler told Stuart Broad on the ‘For the Love of Cricket’ podcast: “Yeah, OK, the wicket fell. I got up to put my helmet on and Ashish said, “Sit back down. We are going to send Nishant at three o’clock. And I asked him after the game. He simply said that he felt like he was not responsive at that time. It was a good opportunity to introduce Nishant, who is a top-order batsman and sometimes on a slippery slope, into the game. If the team advances, he will not bat and will bat at seventh position. So, he felt like this gave him a chance to get into the game.”
Krunal Pandya thrashes Jos Buttler as GT’s big gamble ends in ruin
Unfortunately, the move backfired as Gujarat Titans failed to gain momentum and the pressure kept mounting as wickets fell. When Jos Buttler came to bat, they were already in a difficult position, so they had to try to take the game deep before rebuilding the innings and increasing the pace later on.
But things never went according to plan and Buttler’s innings ultimately ended with Krunal Pandya on only 19 runs from 23 balls.
The veteran wicketkeeper-batsman said, “You know, right or wrong, it was not working for us. I felt like when I was batting, I wanted to take it a little deeper, after losing a few wickets, and run on a ball a bit and then try and pick up those boundaries and move on. And I never got the boundaries. And I did really well with a good piece of bowling. He is a smart operator, Krunal Pandya saw me coming, that wide, fast yorker and I got stumped.
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Jos Buttler reflects on GT’s IPL 2026 final collapse
He said that GT’s batting was very disappointing in IPL 2026 and a score around 180 could have made the difference against RCB at the Narendra Modi Stadium. GT scored 155/8 and RCB chased down the target in 18 overs to defend their IPL title in Ahmedabad on May 31.
Buttler said, “Disappointing; your situation becomes worse than run-a-ball in an IPL final. It’s not a good look. I had a plan in my mind as to how I wanted to play, which I think was the right plan. I just didn’t execute on it. I think if we could have got to 180, it would have been a really good score.”
Notably, the Englishman enjoyed another excellent IPL season. He scored 526 runs in 17 innings with the help of four half-centuries at an impressive strike rate of over 150. This was his second consecutive season when he scored more than 500 runs for Gujarat Titans in the tournament.