Gujarat Titans talisman batter Jos Buttler has revealed head coach Ashish Nehra’s message after he batted at number four in the IPL 2026 final against Royal Challengers Bengaluru at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad on Sunday.

After GT lost the early wicket of their skipper, Shubman Gill, Nehra decided to send Nishant Sindhu ahead of experienced Buttler. However, the ploy didn’t work as Sindhu was dismissed after scoring 20 runs off 18 balls. Buttler, who had been in prime form, was also stumped after scoring 19 runs off 23 balls. 

After GT’s loss, many cricket experts questioned the franchise’s tactics of promoting Sindhu ahead of Jos Buttler.

Jos Buttler said on ‘For the Love of Cricket’ podcast, “When the first wicket went down, I got up to put my helmet on. But Ashish Nehra said, ‘You sit back down, we are going to send Nishant in at 3’. I did ask him after the game, and he just said it felt reactive at that point, and it was a good chance to get Nishant in the game as he’s a top-order batter.”

“He has been sometimes on that slippery slope where the team gets going, and he has ended up not batting or batting at 7. So it was a decision to get him in the game. He had batted ahead of me in another game against KKR. Right or wrong, it just didn’t work out for us.”

Buttler admitted it was disappointing for them as they could not get any impetus in their batting innings. GT was restricted to 155, which was always going to be a below-par score.

“When I did bat, I wanted to take it deep as we had lost a few wickets. I just never got the boundaries and got done in by a good piece of bowling from a smart operator, Krunal Pandya. It’s disappointing when you go worse than a run-a-ball in an IPL final. It’s not a great look,” said Buttler (via the aforementioned source).

RCB were able to chase down the score with five wickets and two overs to spare.