Buttler Dethrones Pollard as T20 Run King
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- Jos Buttler surpassed Kieron Pollard's mark of 14,803 T20 runs to reach 14,833, reaching the milestone with a six off Marco Jansen at Old Trafford before scoring 51 from 20 balls in his 522nd T20 match.
- Chris Gayle held the record at 14,562 runs when he retired in 2022; Pollard overtook him in June and extended the mark to 14,803 during the Major League Cricket season, before Buttler caught him this week.
- Buttler has scored all nine of his T20 centuries since 2021 after moving up the order, averaging 43 in powerplay overs and striking at 184 in death overs (16-20), with only Tom Westley and Kevin Pietersen bettering his powerplay average among English batters with 1,000+ powerplay runs.
- Buttler averages between 37 and 38 against seam (both arms), off-break and slow left-arm spin, with only leg-spin (31.31) showing a dip; since 2021 he has averaged 74 against short-pitched bowling, second only to Pakistan's Mohammad Rizwan among players with 500+ such runs.
- Rashid Khan holds the best strike-rate against Buttler in T20s, dismissing him six times in 82 deliveries, while India's Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Varun Chakaravarthy are the only bowlers to dismiss him more than five times; Trent Boult, Matt Henry and Sam Curran have never got him out.
- Buttler turns 36 on 8 September and will be 38 by the next T20 World Cup in late 2028 in Australia and New Zealand — the same venues where he led England to the 2022 title — though he averaged just 10.87 at this year's tournament.
- Alex Hales sits above Buttler as England's most-capped T20 player with 528 appearances to Buttler's 160 international caps, and trails on runs too (14,429, fourth all-time), though Buttler's 522-match overall total includes 31 matches and 1,192 runs in The Hundred.
Why it matters: Buttler reached the summit with 219 fewer T20 appearances than Pollard (522 vs 741), demonstrating elite efficiency rather than mere accumulation — his powerplay average of 43 and death-overs strike-rate of 184 redefine what a top-order T20 batter can deliver. The record positions the 35-year-old as the favorite to lead England at the 2028 World Cup, where his 2022 triumph and recent 131 against India show his ceiling remains intact despite this year's 10.87 World Cup average.
