IND VS SA: Our Priority Is The T20 World Cup: Shreyas Iyer After India's 2nd Consecutive Loss To South Africa

After India’s second straight loss to South Africa in the ongoing series on Sunday, batter Shreyas Iyer declared that the 2022 T20 World Cup will take precedence over bilateral T20Is.

Heinrich Klassen snatched the game away from India with a 46-ball 81 as South Africa romped home with four wickets to take a 2-0 lead in the five-match series at Cuttack’s Barabati Stadium.

If We Fail, We Learn And Grow As A Team: Shreyas Iyer

Our main aim is obviously the World Cup, so we have to see to it that we plan towards it. So we have that sort of mindset where we are completely free and not thinking about anything else. These are the actual games where we can practise what we were lacking in the past. That’s what we keep discussing in the team meeting as well. No matter what happens, whatever plans we discuss in the team meeting, we have to execute those. Even if we fail, we will learn from that and grow as a player and grow as a team. So that’s more important till we reach Australia,” Shreyas Iyer said in the post-match press conference.

We have made this plan that we will keep going no matter what happens,” Iyer said. “Even if we keep losing wickets, it’s our game plan and in the future too, we will go in with the same mindset. We will back ourselves and back our instincts.”

Iyer on sending Axar Patel ahead of Dinesh Karthik said, “It’s definitely something we have strategised earlier as well. We had seven overs left and Axar Patel is someone who can take singles, who can keep rotating the strike. And we didn’t require someone to come in and start hitting from ball one at that point in time. Even DK [Karthik] can do that obviously but DK has been a really good asset for us after 15 overs where he can come and straightaway slog the ball. Even he found it difficult to start well today. Obviously, the wicket played a huge role in today’s game, but we will be using this strategy in the next games as well.”

The third T20I between India and South Africa will be played on Tuesday in Vishakhapatnam.

Also Read: IND vs SA: Heinrich Klaasen Targeted Our Spinners Really Well – Shreyas Iyer