Shreyas Iyer – Culmination of talent and opportunity

Shreyas Iyer – Culmination of talent and opportunity: Mumbai is taking on Punjab at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai, in the second round of the Ranji Trophy 2015-16.

Winning the toss and choosing to field, the hosts restricted the visitors to 154 runs in their first innings. Shardul Thakur (14-2-47-4) and Balwinder Sandhu (16-4-31-4) literally stole the show for Mumbai.

Commencing their innings, Mumbai, lost 2 quick wickets for just 41 runs. However, young Shreyas Iyer and the firebrand batsman Surya Kumar Yadav held on and saw through the first day with both of them remaining unbeaten on 61 and 16 runs respectively.

Day 2 saw a flurry of runs flow. The two overnight batsmen, Iyer and Yadav put up a third wicket partnership of 234 runs when Yadav (78) departed.

Mumbai skipper and wicket-keeper, Aditya Tare joined Iyer in the middle and the duo put the Punjab bowlers on a ‘leather hunt’. In the process Shreays went to score his maiden double century (200) and Tare (137) scored his first ton of the season.

Iyer’s 200 runs came in 292 minutes, facing 176 deliveries and was studded with 25 hits to the fence and 5 hits over the ropes. At the backdrop of disappointing performances for India ‘A’ – against Australia ‘A’ and South Africa ‘A’ – and the first Ranji tie against Andhra at Vizianagaram, Iyer had his task cut out.

He had a huge responsibility of proving that his previous season tally of 809 runs was no ‘run of the mill’. He also had to provide a platform for his team to go for an outright win.

Speaking to the press, at day-end, the 20-year old said, “My mindset at the start was just to play straight because the pacers were bowling well. I knew that they had  just two pacers, so if I could play out their spell, I could easily dominate the spinners. And I did just that. It was really important for me to cross 50. I was quite relaxed after that. I wanted to stay not out throughout, play session by session and not think about a big score straightaway. I’m glad that I could execute that’.

At 20, a price tag of Rs 2.60 crores, in the IPL auction might sound too ‘ambitious’. This is the price that Delhi Daredevils paid the youngster, Shreyas Santosh Iyer in IPL 2015 season.

Shreyas, who plays First Class cricket for Mumbai, also represented the country in the Under-19 World Cup in 2014. He also helped his alma mater, Poddar College to pick up a few trophies.

Speaking to Harsha Bhogle in the sidelines of a match in IPL 2015, Pravin Amre, the assistant coach of Delhi Daredevils had said, “Iyer came to the Shivaji Park Academy at the age of 12. We asked him to come back next year. He came and joined the academy at 13, and since then he is under our training”.

Making his debut in Ranji Trophy against J&K at the Wankhede Stadium on 7^th December, 2014, Iyer has featured in 16 games (including the on-going one against Punjab) and has scored 1,233 runs in 25 innings at an average of 49.32 with 200 as his individual best.

He has 3 centuries and 8 half-centuries to his credit. Iyer comes across as a player who is hungry to make every opportunity to count. Post his performance in 2014-15 Ranji season and the IPL 215 that followed, he had been attracting the attention of the national selectors. As a result he was picked up for India A assignments against Australia A and South Africa A.

In an interview to a cricket website, Iyer narrated his journey into the cricketing world. He said, “When I started playing Cricket for my school, my coach there took me to Shivaji Park Gymkhana. There Pravin Amre was the coach. Earlier when I played in school, our school coaches would select certain players who they would find good and would take them to Shivaji Park Gymkhana for the trials. They found me really good, so they took me there. In the 1^st year unfortunately I did not get selected but then again I tried in the 2^ndyear and was successful, as I had scored a century against their team in a tournament earlier. They were impressed with the way I had played and selected me. They took me in as a bowling all rounder. So I started as a medium pace bowler and that is how I started my journey of playing Cricket and gradually as I progressed, I started liking batting more and then as I  got more and more runs, I concentrated a lot on my batting rather than bowling”.

Asked about his inspiration to play the game, the youngster said in his interview, “In my growing days I would watch Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Saurav Ganguly. They really inspired me to play cricket. I used to go and watch matches at Wankhede Stadium with my father and that too inspired me a lot”.

Iyer harbours hopes of being part of the national team sooner than later. He is working hard towards that objective.

The ongoing Ranji season should see some spectacular performances from him which would take him closer to his objective. “I just like to be confident and believe in myself, have that faith that you can do it and trust your coaches too. Your team mates can really help you and keep taking advices from everyone but finally listen to yourself. I am confident that I will play for India soon”, said Iyer in that interview.

Hopefully things will fall in place for this enthusiastic and energetic youngster and the cricketing world would sit back to see a new super star emerge in Indian cricket.