most top order batsmen, Jos Buttler holds his bat a touch low, almost thigh-high and sort of crouches in his stance as he peers across.

Someone like Steve Smith or even Rohit Sharma holds their hands pretty high but not Buttler, and it’s one of the key factors in the way he bats.

The first thing he looks across isn’t the bowler running in but the top of the off stump on the other end as he believes it helps him get his head and balance right. Later, he shifts to the bowler even as he begins to move back as first step.

Then a forward movement, sometime aligned with a hip-swivel in the manner of a baseball hitter, and those low hands with cocked wrists help him punish deliveries off varied lengths. If it’s a yorker, as Alzaari Joseph found out, he drops his hands pretty easily and meets the ball almost close to middle of the bat and calmly threads the gap on the off side. It also helps in his scoops over fine-leg.

When he goes big down the ground, he looks to hit long and flat as opposed to long and high. He believes that the attempt to go too high makes him hang back on his backfoot and that affects his hitting ability. He is clearly a batsman who thinks a lot about his game on the technical side: he has almost dismantled it completely before putting it all together in the way he wants it.Mumbai Indians made the mistake of holding back Jasprit Bumrah, who has taken Buttler three times in four innings, till the 5th over.