Former Indian opener Aakash Chopra has lauded the performance of Shreyas Iyer in the recently concluded series against Sri Lanka.
There is no doubt that Shreyas Iyer’s career graph was going down after he suffered a shoulder injury and he was ruled out from the first leg of IPL 2021.
Subsequently, Rishabh Pant took over the captaincy bridle for Delhi Capitals. Iyer made a decent start to his Test career as he scored a fine century in his debut innings against New Zealand. However, he hasn’t been getting a lot of opportunities in the limited-overs format as India has given chances to players like Suryakumar Yadav and Venkatesh Iyer.
Venkatesh has been preferred as a sixth bowling option and thus Shreyas had to sit out for the series against West Indies. However, as Virat Kohli was rested and Suryakumar was ruled out due to injury, Shreyas Iyer got his chance to bat at one-down.
Iyer was able to grab it with both hands as he scored 204 runs in three matches at a fine strike rate of 174.36. The 27-year old remained unbeaten throughout the series and returned with scores of 57, 73, and 74.
Aakash Chopra said on his YouTube Channel, “First, he got injured and then he didn’t have a place in the team. He was in the reserves for the World Cup, lost the captaincy of his franchise. I mean all looked done and dusted. There was a question mark on Shreyas Iyer’s career, there were some black clouds but Shreyas Iyer is back.”
“Everything was going well. It seemed the player is mature, no one will be able to touch him, he got the opportunity to play at No.4 because the middle muddle was there from before the 2019 World Cup. Shreyas had got few chances before that and he had scored runs there but he suddenly became out of favor.”
In fact, Iyer had sealed his place as a number four batter after the 2019 World Cup as he had delivered the goods in all the conditions.
“He was called back as soon as the World Cup got over and the lad played well, struck a century in Hamilton. He played well continuously after that, had an average of almost 40-50 and then there was a discussion that no questions will be raised on his name and that No.4 was cemented.”
Shreyas Iyer has been a consistent performer in the limited-overs format and he would look to continue the good show with the bat.
