Why an in-form Shreyas Iyer is one of the most dangerous T20 batsmen

Leading from the front
Shreyas Iyer was peeved that he didn’t get enough credit when Kolkata Knight Riders won the IPL title last year, with the coaching staff – most notably Gautam Gambhir and Chandrakant Pandit – walking away with most of the kudos. At a new franchise now, Iyer had a chance to stamp his authority at the start, and he led from the front as his unbeaten 97 off just 42 balls took Punjab Kings to an imposing total.

It helped that the pitch at Ahmedabad was a batsman’s friend and IPL debutant Priyansh Arya had given the team a rollicking start with a mixture of elegance, balance and aggression. The Gujarat Titans bowling attack was not pedestrian by any means, featuring the likes of Kagiso Rabada, Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna, along with Rashid Khan and Sai Kishore.

Iyer’s prowess against pace has been questioned for a long time but at least in white-ball cricket, he has shown that those days may be in the past. The first ball he faced, from Rabada, resulted in a lofted on-drive past mid-on, and when the South African strayed on to the pads, he was flicked nonchalantly into the stands beyond square-leg.
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With the pitch providing good pace to play shots, the quicker bowlers largely preferred a hard length, but Iyer wasn’t fazed. Even when he bottom-edged an attempted pull off Krishna on to his ribs, he followed it with three sixes and a four off the next four balls, with the last ball of the over needing an acrobatic save on the boundary to prevent another maximum.

𝙄.𝘾.𝙔.𝙈.𝙄

Enjoy glimpses of a Shreyas Iyer Special in Ahmedabad as he remained unbeaten on 97*(42) 👏

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Rashid is often the banker for his captain, but even he was slaughtered for two sixes in a row in the 14th over, going for 48 runs in his four overs. The new Punjab Kings skipper would have started the season with a hundred had he got strike in the 20th over, but he would have been happy with Shashank Singh getting 23 off the last six balls, which proved vital in the final analysis.

End-overs impact
Only in the IPL can one have a scenario where a player who has had no role to play for 34 of the 40 overs becomes, in some respects, the match-winner for his side. For the second successive night, it was an Impact Player who made the vital difference to the result of the game.

The partnership between Sai Sudharsan and Jos Buttler was almost making a score of 243 seem inadequate, and after the left-hander exited the scene, Gujarat Titans Impact Player Sherfane Rutherford didn’t allow Punjab Kings much respite.

This is where Vijaykumar Vyshak was summoned from the dugout, and the former RCB seamer bottled one end up to stall the momentum of the chase. He bowled just three overs, but those were delivered at the business end of the game. At a time when the required rate was in 13s and above, Vyshak gave away only 28 runs, the two fours and a six that he conceded in his third over. He bowled a very wide line to dangerman Rutherford, not straying from a very full length, which made it difficult to hit sixes.

Along with Arshdeep Singh (4 overs, 36 runs, 2 wickets), Vyshak was the decisive factor in the game.

Infuriating Maxwell

There is a reason Glenn Maxwell is one of the most infuriating players in the game – for the opposition as well as his own team. He can play the most outrageous innings in white-ball cricket, but is also capable of senseless cricket which is likely to embarrass the most inexperienced players.

On Tuesday, with his team well placed at 105/3 just after the halfway mark, the Australian went for a first-ball reverse-sweep off left-arm spinner Sai Kishore, only to miss the ball and be adjudged LBW. Maybe, he was too red-faced at his shot-selection, because had Maxwell challenged the on-field umpire’s decision, the ball projection would have shown the ball going above the stumps.

However, the logic of going for a low-percentage shot off the first ball was questionable, even if it is one of his most productive shots.

A brain-fade at a crucial stage in the ICC Champions Trophy semi-final against India had cost his team some crucial runs, but whichever team he plays for has to make peace with the fact that there’s no predicting what Maxwell would do at any given moment in time.

Compared to his high-risk approach with the bat, rookie Priyansh Arya and Shashank Singh scored at a remarkable rate by playing largely orthodox shots. Arya, who impressed in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy for Delhi, seemed unfazed with the higher quality of bowling. He was especially proficient on the leg-side, peppering the boundary and the stands regularly. A straight drive was the most eye-catching of his shots and when the fast bowlers provided width, Arya used the pace to find the rope either side of third man.

Shashank made his name with some impressive late-order striking last season, being rewarded by the franchise with a retention. On Tuesday, he took the pressure off Iyer to such an extent that the skipper didn’t get enough strike to reach a well-deserved hundred.