'He walked into Indian side with so much promise' - Ajay Jadeja on how Shreyas Iyer lacks intent of a skipper now

India started their West Indies tour with a narrow three-run win at Queen’s Park Oval on Friday, 22 July. Shreyas Iyer smashed his tenth ODI fifty and completed 1000 runs as well. Skipper Shikhar Dhawan scored the highest 97 runs off 99 balls and Shubman Gill contributed with a 64-run knock on his ODI return. India managed to put 308 runs on the scoreboard while batting first after these three brilliant half-centuries from the opening three batters.

Last year, Iyer was tipped to be a future India captain but he is not making a strong case for it now. Former Indian cricketer Ajay Jadeja believes that the player is struggling with technical factors like getting out on short deliveries.

“I feel for the man. I mean. He walked into the Indian side with so much promise. A year ago we would be thinking about talking about him as the future India captain and leading the side. He starts off great and has a Test match hundred. Suddenly, a couple of times he has got out to short balls and not going into the technical factors behind it, but that is playing so much on his mind that you saw that in this innings,” Ajay Jadeja said on FanCode.

He would be disappointed though: Ajay Jadeja on Shreyas Iyer missing a century

The 27-year-old batter started in the number three position in the first match and had previously played in the fourth and fifth positions. Suryakumar Yadav, who played in the fourth position, is likely to keep his place in the squad when Virat Kohli returns. Jadeja believes that Iyer lacked the intent to score big against the weaker bowling unit as India survived by only three runs. He said that the batter approached his innings similar to Dhawan’s knock, who looked strong for his century.

“The way he approached today was very similar to Shikhar Dhawan. So you need a big score to get out of it. He had a decent game I would say. He would be disappointed though. With this bowling attack, you would want to make the most of it. Get a 100 and nobody will have anything to say. With this score, you cannot say that he is over the problem he has had. You cannot look at this game like we did to India versus England. For me, this is a practice game,” Jadeja added.