How Buttler became T20 cricket's run-scoring GOAT

The race, whether stated or not, has been on since 2022.

That was when Chris Gayle, the charismatic West Indies opener who blazed a trail in the shortest format, played his last professional game, setting a mark of 14,562 runs in T20 cricket.

Buttler was always one of the leading candidates to take the record down.

However, it was another West Indian in T20 journeyman Pollard, 39, who beat him to it, passing Gayle's total in June and extending the record to 14,803 over the course of the Major League Cricket season.

Pollard had the advantage as the leading appearance maker in the format with 741 - 139 more than Sunil Narine in second place.

Buttler sits ninth on that list with 522 appearances and while he is England's highest T20 appearance maker with 160 caps, he doesn't hold the record for most appearances in the format by an Englishman.

That goes to Alex Hales, who has made 528 appearances and was another candidate to break the record - he has 14,429 runs to his name and sits fourth in the all-time list.

Buttler's total includes 1,192 runs scored in 31 matches in The Hundred, with cricket statisticians including data from the competition in T20 records.

It all started in Hyderabad, curiously enough.

Playing in the short-lived Champions League Twenty20 in 2009, Somerset debutant Buttler, who had recently turned 19, emerged at number nine against New South Wales.

A single driven down the ground off Moises Henriques was the first of six runs that day, finishing unbeaten as his side closed on 111 and then lost the match within 12 overs.

When he made his England debut, almost two years later in Manchester, he wasn't called upon to bat as the home side beat India. Indeed, he didn't bat in three of his first four T20I appearances.

Buttler's first taste of life in international cricket was as a lower-order finisher, and his first runs for England in that India series were 13 from number seven.

He started slowly, with an unbeaten 32 against South Africa - his one score higher than 15 in his first 11 innings at international level.

However, former England team-mate Dawid Malan said Buttler's qualities were always evident.

"He started young [he was 20 when he made his England debut]. He always had the scoops and power and he's developed with the modern game," said Malan.

"He's never been left behind and he's almost been at the forefront of pushing the modern game and what players can do."

Buttler's first half-century for England came against New Zealand in 2013, though it took until the 2021 T20 World Cup for his first ton - against Sri Lanka in Sharjah, off 67 balls.

Perhaps Buttler's greatest strength is his lack of weakness against any particular form of bowling.

Against seam from either hand and versus off-break and slow left-arm spin, the difference in his average is within a margin of a run, sitting between 37 and 38.

Only against leg-break bowling does his average tail off a little, but only to a still respectable 31.31, while he is prolific against the uncommon left-arm unorthodox spin, averaging 48.20.

His boundary ball percentage is marginally better against seam, sitting in the low 20s as opposed to the mid-teens against spin.

His strike-rate is best against the right-arm seamers, against whom he has scored almost 50% of his runs - reflective of the type of bowlers he faces in the powerplay.

Buttler is particularly dismissive of the short ball - averaging 74 against it since 2021 - while of players to have more than 500 runs in the same period, only Pakistan's Mohammad Rizwan averages more against short-pitched bowling.

It's quite staggering that fellow white-ball legends Trent Boult, Matt Henry and Sam Curran have never dismissed Buttler in T20 cricket and only two men have got the better of him more than five times - India duo Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Varun Chakaravarthy.

Afghanistan's Rashid Khan has the best strike-rate against Buttler - removing him six times in just 82 deliveries.

"He's captained and played all around the world and he's been a marquee player," said Malan.

"When you are the marquee player in the team, you get paid the most and the expectation from the owners, captains, coaches and team-mates is that you're going to go out and score runs every single time - and the pressure that comes with that is immense.

"His whole life, he's been able to deal with pressure. That just makes it all the more remarkable what he's done."