POST MATCH ANALYSIS
Follow UsWhen Shreyas Iyer completed his hundred today, his celebration didn’t exude a calm swagger like usual. It was jaunty, animated and intense. He finished the run, leapt in the air, and let out a roar announcing that he might have been away from the game, and his form might have been dodgy, but his comeback was never in question. It was as if he was roaring at people who even dared to think that India could go to the World Cup without him.
That number four position in the batting order that he had emphatically made his own is going nowhere. It has the words SHREYAS IYER written on it in bold capitals.
However, things were not this sure for Iyer some time ago.
After getting surgery done in April this year for the back injury that had troubled him, he had to undergo a three-month-long rehab at the NCA in Bangalore and then wait even more before returning to the Asia Cup. He played one game and got caught at short-midwicket despite nailing a pull shot.
After that, he had to sit out the rest of the tournament due to a niggle. Then, in the first game of this ongoing ODI series, he looked fidgety and nervous throughout his stay at the crease, building up dot balls and eventually perishing by trying to take a non-existent run to ease up the building pressure.
While Iyer nervously awaited his comeback, Ishan Kishan presented himself as a worthy replacement in the middle order by playing an impactful 82 against Pakistan after the team was four down for 66. The intent and execution he displayed against the likes of Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf and Shaheen Shah Afridi was a testament to Kishan's worthiness as a middle-order batter.
Then, even KL Rahul scored a class hundred against Pakistan as he returned to the setup in the Asia Cup. With Ishan and Rahul playing so well in the middle order, Iyer's spot in the XI looked in jeopardy. Further, head coach Rahul Dravid backed Ishan in his press statements, praising his versatility as someone who can bat anywhere in the batting order. Things were not looking suitable for Iyer all of a sudden. The pressure to perform in the second ODI at Indore was apparent, with the team management waiting for the right-hand batter to perform so they could tick all boxes going into a home World Cup.
The conditions at the small Holkar stadium in Indore today were well-suited for him to bat long, score big and put all the debates about his form and fitness to rest.
And that is precisely what Iyer did. He batted for 90 balls after coming in at No.3, scored 105 runs, and put to bed all the chatter about his form and fitness.
In an inning full of spectacular shots, he oozed confidence and nonchalance - two qualities that have always stood out about the Mumbaikar’s batting. He came in to bat at No.3 (an attempt by the team management to give him much-needed batting time), and right from the first single he took to open his account, he kept the attacking intent for most of his innings on a relatively flat track. Before the first rain break in the 9th over of the Indian inning, he was 34* off 20.
After the rain break, he continued batting in that fashion, bringing up his fifty against Spencer Johnson by nailing a tennis forehand shot for six over long-off against a ball banged into the surface. He eventually slowed down before his hundred, taking 29 balls to score his last 26 runs in a period where Shubman Gill trundled along to his century, bringing down the team's scoring rate. In the end, despite looking good to cross that 400 mark easily on a batting pitch, India ended up at least 20 short.
Iyer eventually got out right after his hundred, trying to whack the ball out of the ground with a cramped hand, but this century from the 28-year-old has gone a long way in shifting back the focus to his stellar record as a middle-order batter.
Before making his return in the Asia Cup, Iyer had scored 805 runs in 20 innings with an average of 47.35 and SR of 94.4 at the No.4 spot after the 2019 World Cup. In the same time frame, other candidates for the position had combined scored at an average of 27.2 and SR of 90. Additionally, his widely acknowledged prowess against spin (even left-arm spin, which has been a kryptonite of Virat and Surya) further adds to his credentials as a number 4 batter.
Also, read - Shreyas Iyer is the perfect candidate to end the number four noise.
After today’s game and Shreyas’s performance, India have almost ticked all the boxes for the World Cup - something that can’t be said about the last couple of ICC tournaments. With the middle order looking strong and Surya finding a new template to bat in ODIs, Rahul Dravid and Rohit Sharma would be buoyant for India’s campaign for their third ODI World Cup title.
