Former Indian batter Robin Uthappa said Shreyas Iyer has his own persona and he is not a people pleaser after the latter was appointed as India’s T20I captain. Iyer replaced Suryakumar Yadav at the helm and would take charge from Ireland T20I series onwards.
The Mumbai batter has a great captaincy record in the IPL, taking Kolkata Knight Riders to glory in IPL 2024. Furthermore, Iyer took Delhi Capitals and Punjab Kings to the final of the tournament in 2020 and 2025 editions respectively.
Robin Uthappa said on his YouTube Channel, “He has improved his T20 batting the last few years almost despite the system. He is not a people pleaser. He is his own person and goes against the grain of people in India. He can be aggravatingly annoying because he doesn’t fit the norms of an Indian cricketer. He does his own thing and says pick me if you want to pick me.”
“Iyer has built this persona out of himself into what he is. He has the immense self belief that you see in the best players in the world like Virat and Rohit. He also takes ownership when the stakes are the highest as a batter. He has all the ingredients of a great captain and the aura is different.”
Uthapa said Iyer got a wake up call when he was getting troubled with short deliveries and thus worked on the same to become a better batter.
“He never actually believed he had a problem with the short ball although he was getting out to it. But it was a weakness at a particular point in time. Yet, he took notice of it when people started saying that he is a bunny to the short ball and that he’ll never improve on it. That got his antennas up and got him to work,” said Uthappa (via the aforementioned source).
“He wanted to prove people wrong and was motivated for it. He addressed it and it was a mindset shift as well. Initially, he tried to take singles to the short ball or a bouncer. Then he took the positive route of looking to score big against the short ball. That helped his body get into better positions. Now he gets tall to play the short ball, which shows the kind of work he has put into it.”
Iyer will lead India for the first time against Ireland on June 26.
