Shreyas Iyer Again Goes Ballistic, Issues Fresh Warning To English Seamers
Shreyas Iyer is a part of the squad that will feature against England in the five-match Test series that is expected to start next week in Hyderabad. He returned to play Ranji Trophy after a five-year-long hiatus to prepare for the Test series against England and warmed up with a run-a-ball 48 in Mumbai’s 10-wicket win against Andhra Pradesh at home.
Shreyas Iyer batted at No. 5 in the first innings, on the first day, and he was not bothered even though the Andhra pacers bowled ‘negative’ to him by going around the wicket and pitching it short at times. Shreyas Iyer flicked the full deliveries and pulled the short ones scoring as many as 75% of his runs on the leg side. He struck only one of his seven fours on the off side.
“I’m going to play attacking irrespective of the situation,” he said after Mumbai’s win. “And also when you bowl negative, when you bowl safe and defensive at the start, you want to score runs and you need to take your team through up to a certain point. So that was my mindset and that’s why stuck with it. Yeah, I was happy [with my knock] irrespective of the score.”
“[As] I said, they were bowling defensive and they didn’t let me play to my strengths. Even though they started with the short balls, I was able to execute them for boundaries and get a lot of runs out of it. Again, they were bowling negative so there was literally no scope to…other than leaving the ball I couldn’t have done much. I knew that leaving the ball would, to be honest, bore me. I would rather go and play some strokes. That’s what I considered at that point in time.”
Shreyas Iyer’s Strike Rate Determines His Style Of Play
Shreyas Iyer was happy with the shots he played against the short ball and hopefully, we would see the same kind of batting from him against England. England have a lot of players who play aggressive red-ball cricket. The whole English team follows the Bazball approach which is to play aggressive cricket in Test matches, especially by the batters. India had Rishabh Pant who used to bat with that mindset but with him being injured, Shreyas Iyerb can play the role of aggressor in Test cricket for India.
Shreyas Iyer’s style of play can be seen in his career strike rate of 101.27 in ODIs and 136.12 in T20Is. It’s largely the same approach he has adopted in first-class matches too as his strike rate in FC cricket is 78.63 even though it drops to 65.34 in Tests. Shreyas Iyer could play a crucial part in the series against England with his attacking game against the spinners if both teams play on rank turner.
Shreyas Iyer suffered a back injury during the Border-Gavaskar trophy in 2023 and was out of cricket for a good amount of time. He made a comeback in September and played an important role in India’s run to the finals of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023. Shreyas Iyer scored 530 runs in 11 innings at an average of 66.25 smashing three half-centuries and two centuries in the World Cup. India will hope that he carries a similar form in the upcoming series.
