Anyone who has seen Shreyas Iyer bat in first-class cricket swears by his audacious and belligerent stroke-play. Ravichandran Ashwin would probably attest to it, going by the manner in which the 22-year-old had orchestrated a stunning counter-attack against the seasoned off-spinner during a Ranji Trophy game in October. En route to his 11th century, Iyer systematically quelled the threat Ashwin had posed on the final day, throwing him off line and length with some skilful display of batsmanship.<\/p>\n
Iyer has been domestic cricket\u2019s most prolific young batsman, accumulating runs at a frenetic pace for some time now. So much so, that it had become difficult for the selectors to ignore him from the contours of international cricket. After his brief dalliance with the A-tours and brush with T20Is, he was inducted into the New Zealand series squad. When India captain Virat Kohli opted out of the limited overs leg of the Sri Lanka series, it handed Iyer the glorious opportunity to show his ware in the 50-over format.<\/p>\n
His initiation, however, did not begin on an auspicious note. On the tacky Dharamsala surface, he found the going tough against the seamers led admirably by Suranga Lakmal. Coming into bat at the No.3 spot, Iyer prodded his way to nine runs before he would play an uncharacteristic cut to a relatively fullish delivery off Nuwan Pradeep, only to see his off-stump rattled. As India folded up rather meekly for 112, Iyer\u2019s faulty shot selection was autopsied and ripped apart by his detractors, and the purists who deemed his unusually high back-lift and uncharacteristic shoulder-shrugs technically unsound.<\/p>\n
Despite the torrid debut, Iyer had the unflinching support of skipper Rohit Sharma. \u201cGuys like Shreyas, Manish and Kedar have not got enough games on a trot. If they want to prove themselves, they must have a number of games under their belt. There is intense competition and it\u2019s up to them to perform when they are given that opportunity. My job as a captain would be to ensure that they enjoy themselves and perform without any burden,\u201d he had said.<\/p>\n
Perhaps it was Rohit\u2019s support that helped him turn a corner and make amends in the second ODI in Mohali. Thankfully for Iyer, the conditions were different to what he had experienced in Dharamsala. For starters, India were off to a comfortable start when Iyer walked out to bat.<\/p>\n
The sight of his captain too would have soothed his frayed nerves. He settled down without much fuss, rotating the strike adeptly and kept the scoreboard ticking over. For someone who had dismantled a bowler of Ashwin\u2019s reputation two months ago, handling the Sri Lankan spinners proved an easy task. With nimble footwork, he thwarted the spin duo of Akila Dananjaya and Sachith Pathirana. Scoring at a run-a-ball, Iyer gave the thrust and the requisite momentum the innings deserved, and his 213-run alliance with Rohit knocked the sails out of the hapless visitors. Despite his ungainly stance and those constant shrugs\u2014his technique may not look textbookish\u2014 he was mighty effective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Anyone who has seen Shreyas Iyer bat in first-class cricket swears by his audacious and belligerent stroke-play. Ravichandran Ashwin would probably attest to it, going by the manner in which the 22-year-old had orchestrated a stunning counter-attack against the seasoned off-spinner during a Ranji Trophy game in October. En route to his 11th century, Iyer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14046,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14045"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14047,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14045\/revisions\/14047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}