Shreyas Iyer needs to keep scoring runs to be relevant
It was a perfect GIF moment for his naysayers. Shreyas Iyer took two steps to his right, then went back two steps to his left, stretched his willow and still missed the ball by a distance, triggering shock and laugh in equal measure on Twitter. Social media can be cruel to apparent weaknesses and with data analysts holding greater strength and influence, life has only gotten tougher for players at the highest level.
Still relatively inconsistent but facing Dushmantha Chameera can be a real challenge at times, especially when the tall Sri Lankan gets it to shape late away from the right-hander at express pace. Iyer had gotten into his innings with a straight drive full of command and composure against left-arm pacer Binura Fernando. But here he was, clearly wary of the hard length and short-pitch bowling from Chameera.
The psychological effect of the short-pitched delivery is accentuated by technical failings. Ask Suresh Raina, whose inability to ride the bounce at high speeds spoiled what should’ve been a flourishing career even now. In Iyer’s case, his backfoot almost gets jammed for a split-second late, making it impossible for him to quickly move across and cover for the bounce.
It’s an instinctive reaction (or lack of) indirectly based on ability; some players have less time to play fast-bowling than others. Iyer very rarely plays the pull and the hook. But once late into this trigger, he tries to counter this length by moving down the leg to create room and attempt a slash over the in-field. When he connects, it’s four runs; when he doesn’t, it’s fodder to critics waiting to pounce on him.
Shreyas Iyer played another critical innings for India in Dharamshala T20I.
It’s a unique problem to a Mumbai player, grown-up facing dose of fast-bowling on the red-soil decks at the Wankhede, to have such alarming weakness against stiff bounce at pace. Even when his overall game has been in the doldrums over the last few years, Ajinkya Rahane has seldom found the short-ball too difficult to counter. It makes Shreyas Iyer almost a non-Mumbai product out of Mumbai’s rich batting factory.
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But it would be ignorant to not understand the 27-year-old is more aware of this weakness than all of us outside. We don’t credit him enough for it but it’s an issue he has tackled and managed successfully enough over the years to make an India career. Realising he might never completely overcome it, Iyer has had to work on developing methods to counter the short ball and keep his innings going. The ugly back and forth he sometimes indulges in seems to be a carefully planned occurrence and not so much an accident.
Shreyas Iyer – survival over aesthetics
While the Dharamsala one took it to extremes, with late swing making the stroke look more implausible, the idea in play was not different to other instances where Iyer has preempted the short ball and moved a second early to aim for the off-side. He is willing to look ugly in the process but as long as he is forcing the bowler to change his length and survive to play the next ball, Shreyas Iyer is fine.
At the end of the day, cricket is about surviving long enough to face the next ball and score runs. Those who care for aesthetics over substance would always diss at it. But there is no bigger currency for a batter in our sport than runs. Runs keep you in consideration, they help you play the next match and keep the trust intact in your method.
The limit on bouncers per over, combined with the flattening of conditions in white-ball cricket, and a strong temperament and clarity, have all helped Shreyas Iyer manage his weakness and play multiple innings like the one on Saturday in Dharamshala.
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Once he could survive Chameera, and his pace partner Lahiru Kumara, Iyer got into his own with sixes against the spin of Praveen Jayawickrama and medium pace of Chamika Karunaratne and Dasun Shanaka. The batter played aggressor for the majority of his stand with Sanju Samson until his partner, too, got going and was then smart enough to cut risks when Ravindra Jadeja came out all guns blazing. The end goal was to stay till the end to see through an Indian win and he achieved it with skill, flexibility, clarity, pragmatism and survival instincts through an unbeaten 74.
These are the kind of innings that keeps Shreyas Iyer’s case strong and healthy in a set-up of unprecedented depth. When Virat Kohli and Rishabh Pant come back and Suryakumar Yadav recovers from injury, they’ll combine to make India’s first-choice middle-order, certainly in T20Is. With No 6 and 7 being your designated allrounders, there would simply be no space for Iyer. It is why he missed matches against the West Indies.
Being in this spot is incredibly difficult, for you play irregularly, which plagues your game but when you do, you need to keep your game attuned enough for the challenge in store to be able to perform and perform well. Falter and the race to stay in contention is lost.
Iyer has been doing it for long enough. For all the talk of range and weaknesses, he now has a strike-rate of over 96 in ODIs and nearly 140 in T20Is over 61 white-ball internationals.
His survival over such a large sample size makes for a promising future where, 10 years down the line, there would still be GIFs made of Shreyas Iyer finding himself in a tangle while he would grin looking at all his achievements for India in a career marked by survival, not style, and relevance above aesthetics.