On a day when Mumbai Indians sprung a surprise by promoting Jos Buttler to an opener along with Parthiv Patel, he had to face a few questions at the post-match press conference. The Englishman had given a fiery start to our innings, which laid the perfect platform for a formidable total.

During the second innings, a couple of drop catches cost Mumbai Indians dear and the first question to Jos was around the visibility for fielders at the venue, “The lights here are quite low and are wide too. We practised hard on the two days before trying to take catches. Unfortunately, when it goes in front of the lights, it is nearly impossible and tricky. It’s disappointing when we drop catches because they can be big moments in games, but it is very difficult with the lights here.”

Jos Buttler had never faced a ball off Ben Stokes in a T20 game. He was asked how he felt about facing his England team-mate. Buttler openly expressed his joy at playing against, “It is good fun to play against Ben (Stokes) and it is good for English cricket that we have guys over here. We are usually team-mates and face each other a lot in the nets, but it was nice to play against him in the game.”

The pitch was a good one to bat on and we played four pacers with just the one spinner. Buttler responded to how MI read the pitch before this game, “Pune does help slower bowlers, but ours did well. We nearly defended (our total). Hardik did fantastically well in the end to get us around a par score and we nearly defended it. We are clear on the make-up of the team and are happy with it today.”

We all know the kind of form Steve Smith has been of late. When asked how Mumbai Indians could have stopped him, Buttler remarked, “He is probably the best batsman in the world at the moment. No one seems to have come up with a plan quite yet for him. He played really well, read the situation well and stayed not out, right till the end. We keep trying and formulate plans within team meetings, but he was too good today.”

At the end of the chase, Tim Southee dropped MS Dhoni off Bumrah in the 19th over. Buttler was quizzed if this was a crucial moment in the game too. He replied in disagreement, “It didn’t prove to be (crucial). Steve Smith, obviously hit the last two sixes. To be honest, it is a game of fine margins. When you get chances, you need to take them and we know what it means to drop catches. That’s the game for you, winning or losing can hang on fine margins. We’ve let ourselves down and look forward to our next game.”

The question we expected to be the first one, turned out to be the final one. Buttler’s move up the order was a surprise for almost everyone. Buttler was quite excited with the move and shared how motivated he felt, “Yeah, I was very motivated! Having had a year’s experience in the IPL has helped me. There are less surprises this year, I hope. I have been to the tournament before and understand about it as well. You are desperate to do well as an overseas player. You are under pressure to perform and I enjoyed the role at the top of the order. I felt in good touch, it was an okay start and I am determined to kick on.”

It will be interesting to see how often Buttler takes up the opener’s slot this season. The wicket-keeper-batsman’s destructive nature could prove to be a trump card in the Powerplay, as he showed today. Such starts in this season could give the rest of the batting line-up a lot of breathing space. The batting was pretty sound for Mumbai Indians, barring a few failures in the middle-order, but the fielding will have to be better in the next game. The team will go back to the drawing board and return stronger for their first home game, against Kolkata Knight Riders on Sunday, 9th April.