Gujarat Titans’ Shubman Gill and Mohammed Siraj© AFP
The Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 season is about to get underway in just over a week’s time and the hype has already begun. Players have begun arriving at their respective team camps amidst a huge amount of fanfare. Star England wicket-keeper batter Jos Buttler – a veteran of the IPL – has shared a sneak peek into the commitments that players face beyond the cricket field during the IPL. Buttler, who will play for Gujarat Titans (GT) in IPL 2026, revealed that players even have to dance for numerous sponsor advertisements.
“When you get to the IPL, there’s a bit of a razzmatazz when you arrive. The first few days are generally filled with shoots and head shots and usual things. A lot of the sponsors for the teams end up doing ads,” Buttler revealed, speaking on the ‘For The Love Of Cricket’ podcast.
Buttler expressed relief that he would likely not have to dance in advertisements as the Gujarat Titans team already has better dancers in the form of captain Shubman Gill, Rashid Khan and Mohammed Siraj.
“Dancing was big a few years ago. I’m lucky in this team that we’ve got real superstars. With Shubman Gill, Rashid Khan, Mohammed Siraj, (Kagiso) Rabada, Prasidh Krishna, Sai Sudharsan, I know there are quite a few who are better dancers than I am,” Buttler said.
“So any dancing ones will hopefully be taken up by them. There’s a lot of that in the first few days,” he added.
Coming back to cricket, Buttler will be hoping to reverse his recent poor form with the bat. Despite England reaching the semi-finals at the T20 World Cup 2026, Buttler managed only 87 runs in eight matches.
The 35-year-old had a stellar IPL season in 2025, slamming 538 runs in 13 innings at an average of nearly 60 and a strike-rate of 163.03, reaching the playoffs in his first year with GT.