Jos Buttler did a little acknowledgement with his old man, hopefully looking from above and showering blessings, as he completed his half-century off just 34 balls against the Welsh Fire, with his side still requiring 53 runs to win, in the remaining 34. It was Buttler's fifth half-century in the Hundred, playing for the Manchester Originals, and overall 94th in the T20 format as he surpassed former Pakistan skipper Babar Azam on the elite list.
Buttler is now third on the list of players with the most half-centuries in T20 cricket, led by David Warner. Warner has smashed 113 fifties in his short-format career, going with eight centuries, while former India captain Virat Kohli is below him with 105 half-centuries against his name, in addition to nine hundreds.
Most half-centuries in T20 cricket
113 - David Warner (418 innings)
105 - Virat Kohli (397 innings)
94 - Jos Buttler (436 innings)
93 - Babar Azam (309 innings)
88 - Chris Gayle (455 innings)
Buttler is just one of the six batters in T20 cricket history to have scored 13,000-plus runs and is still going strong. However, the veteran wicketkeeper-batter couldn't take the Manchester Originals over the line as Chris Green and Riley Meredith combined to hand the home side Welsh Fire a sensational victory with a solid defence of a middling score of 137 runs in Cardiff on Wednesday.
Lewis Gregory played a couple of good shots, but Buttler never got much support from the other batters as another 30-40-odd contribution could have taken the Originals over the line. The Thursday result was the third defeat for the Originals in the competition and they are slowly inching towards the must-win territory.
All eight teams have won at least one game and the competition is slowly heating up with the likes of Southern Brave and Oval Invincibles, the teams in the top half, also suffering their respective first defeats.
