Jos Buttler, the England wicketkeeper, said that he saw shades of MS Dhoni in Sam Curran’s knock during the third ODI against India on Sunday at the MCA Stadium in Pune. Though the visitors lost, Curran kept them in the hunt until the very last over as he stayed unbeaten on 95 runs off 83 balls with the help of nine fours and three sixes.

He came to bat with the Brits needing 162 runs off 24.2 overs and didn’t allow the pressure to get to him. The southpaw stitched useful stands with Adil Rashid and Mark Wood and kept chipping away at the target of 330 set by India. Buttler, who led England in Eoin Morgan’s absence, said that conversations with Dhoni have helped Curran immensely.

He’s a great person for Sam to have a conversation with: Jos Buttler

“I’m sure Sam would want to talk to MS about tonight’s innings. I’m sure there were shades of the way that he (MS Dhoni) would have liked to take the game down if he was in that situation. He’s a great person for Sam to have a conversation with when he meets up MS (in the IPL),” Butter was quoted as saying in a virtual press conference.

“We know what an amazing cricketer, finisher MS Dhoni is. A brilliant learning curve for all our players to share dressing rooms with guys like MS” stature in the game. I’m very excited for them,” he stated.

Curran is now set to take part in the 2021 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), scheduled to get underway on April 9. In the tournament, he will be playing for the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), whose first game is against Delhi Capitals (DC) on April 10 at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.

Buttler stated that the target wasn’t insurmountable by any means and was well within the Three Lions’ reach. But he also mentioned that loss of wickets at regular intervals didn’t help their cause.

“We were happy to chase that score. We thought that was a manageable score, but we lost wickets at regular intervals and never got those partnerships together. Never thought run-rate would be a big issue but we lost wickets,” Buttler added.