OPINION
Follow UsIn bilaterals, India roll over the sides. By winning the Sri Lanka series 3-0, they secured their 12th consecutive win in the shortest format of the game. This run is a growing testament to the kind of talents the country is producing in the last decade and a serious promise to extend their dominance as the strongest cricket team in the world.
However, just by playing good cricket and winning bilaterals, legacies are hardly made. The Sri Lankan and the South African sides of the 2000s were utterly dominant in both Tests and ODIs, yet when we speak of world-dominant sides a decade and a half later, only Australia comes to our head. However unfair it is, legacies are remembered by overseas Test victories and World Cup wins. The mind is attuned in that way.
Since the Champions Trophy win in 2013, India have found themselves wanting in that regard and the result is pretty much down to their conservative brand of cricket. Pakistan and New Zealand’s left-arm seamers dictated the course in the last World Cup in UAE when the Indian batters found themselves strangled by the dominant left-arm pacers.
The fundamental reason I spoke about India’s performance in a column dedicated to Shreyas Iyer is because he was the casualty of a systematic failure in Indian cricket in two vastly different eras. One must not become a product of making up for the lost time because the previous regime had mishandled his success. Iyer, since his claim to fame in the Ranji Trophy eight years ago, has seen it all - in a bi-polar lens.
Be it his exclusion from the 2019 ODI World Cup or a delayed Test call-up, he deserved better from the selectors and the management. From all accounts, his success in whatever format that comes in should have been celebrated but his 204-run series against Sri Lanka now has brought about more questions than answers.
Let’s acknowledge this first - the Mumbaikar had an incredibly brilliant series. In fact, his 204 runs are the most for an Indian in a three-match T20I series and the highest after David Warner’s 217 runs against Sri Lanka in 2019. Additionally, he also became the second Indian after Virat Kohli and the fifth overall to hit a 50-plus score in all three innings of a three-match bilateral T20 series. These are some incredible achievements.
In a parallel world, this should have meant something else but for Iyer, a big question mark now hangs in front of him as far as his immediate future in the format is concerned. KL Rahul, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, and Rishabh Pant were all absent in the series, and in all consideration, these four are a lock-in for Australia 2022. Iyer is more suited to play the role of an anchor in this set-up and the only way he could make it to the side is by replacing either Rohit Sharma or Virat Kohli - which is not the way India would ever approach the 2022 T20 World Cup.
Further, Iyer has a knack for dominating the spinners but his performance against high-quality pacers on bouncy decks is yet to be tested properly. He has a strike rate of 111.32 against 135 kmph or more deliveries, which is significantly lower than the SR of his close competitor, Yadav. India would much rather prefer the latter for the impact he brings to the table than Iyer, whose batting excellency is more suited to the demands of ODIs and Tests.
"I think it's way (too) long to think about right now," admitted Iyer when asked about the World Cup spot. "I can't talk about cementing my place because as I mentioned earlier, the competition is so much and you need to be flexible in terms of batting in any position or any given situation. So my mindset is just to grab as many opportunities as I can and see to it that I maximise the use of it."
Iyer knows India need him to don the aggressor hat in the T20s more often, especially knowing the insurance the top order provides. Iyer’s methods in the Sri Lanka series had an undertone of “changing according to the situations” and he used the pace of the ball more often by forcing himself on the trigger.
One wouldn’t be wrong to suggest that Dushmantha Chameera and Lahiru Kumara don’t provide the same level of skill set as one would expect from the likes of Trent Boult, Shaheen Afridi, Kagiso Rabada, and Pat Cummins, but it is a matter of anticipation that had built many legends. And if the Mumbaikar can continue to reinvent the wheel, things can change dramatically.
"When you play the T20 format, if you bat in the top three, that's the only place you can pace the innings. If you bat after that, you can't give yourself time - you need to go from ball one. If I had to say the best number for me to bat, it's obviously No. 3,” the 27-year-old said during the media interaction.
For now, things are pretty fluid. With Rohit and Rahul set to open in a full-strength set-up, even Ishan Kishan, whose X-factor has been hailed massively, can’t even find a guaranteed spot. Then there is Kohli, SKY, and Pant to be content with before Ravindra Jadeja takes over along with a pace-bowling all-rounder. In a team of such skillset and aggressive batters, only extraneous situations can get Iyer in.
But situations like these make batters believe in their worth as much as it can dismay them. If Iyer can cancel the outside noise, just like the way his endorsed headphone brand does, you are perhaps looking at one of the biggest superstars of the format lurking at his future with an optimistic look.
