Shreyas Iyer's audacity, belligerence and caution brings Bengaluru to its feet
12th March 2022, Shreyas Iyer, as he has done for most of his nascent Test career, waltz into a relatively precarious situation. The score reads 86/4 and India have just lost two wickets in quick succession. The pitch is playing all sorts of tricks and nothing but a rear-guard action would suffice.
Under ordinary circumstances, any batter would have tried to buckle down, absorb pressure and looked to just graft their way through. A rash shot at that juncture would have led to countless hours of scrutiny and of course, questioned whether the said batter was good enough to continue playing Test cricket.
Fair to say then that the stakes are pretty high, both in terms of the game situation and in terms of what turn Shreyas’ career could take. In that very moment, he decides to do what most people wouldn’t even have dreamt of. And, it doesn’t just dig India out of a treacherous pit, it makes almost everyone (at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium and at home) stand up and just applaud.
At the start of Shreyas’ essay, Lasith Embuldeniya and Dhananjaya de Silva had just begun getting into their groove. They weren’t as consistent as Sri Lanka would have wanted them to, but they were still producing enough wicket-taking deliveries. Praveen Jayawickrama was also posing the odd question, meaning that the Kolkata Knight Riders skipper had his hands full.
The first ball he faces spins a great deal. The length, though, allows him to negotiate it with the minimal of fuss. A delivery later, the ball grubs along the ground and the former Delhi Capitals batter is fortunate to chalk it into the on-side.
That ball, apart from illustrating what he is up against, makes him realize that survival on this strip isn’t going to be easy. If anything, it makes him understand that he needs to weigh up his options and visualize a trade-off – a trade-off where he could either throw caution to the wind, or retreat into his shell.
Most would have chosen one of the two because, well, it is always better to have clarity. Shreyas, though, doesn’t belong to the majority. He despite being very young in his Test career, seems born to play Test cricket.
Thus, it was only fitting that he unfurled a mechanism that was the ideal blend of caution and aggression. And, of course, a batting philosophy that was pretty close to perfection.
Post the Tea interval, India returned with renewed vigour. Rishabh Pant, in particular, threw his bat at literally everything, ultimately living and dying by that sword. Shreyas was a little more calculative but when the opportunities presented themselves, he showed just as much conviction.
He was aided slightly by the wayward lines and lengths Sri Lanka bowled. And, had anyone just watched the cuts and pulls Shreyas executed, they might even be tempted to say that he feasted on bad bowling. His knock, however, wasn’t special because of the boundaries he hit. Instead, it was all about what he did in between.
Shreyas Iyer has earned every single drag down half tracker from the Lankan spinners. He’s made it possible by being so destructive of anything that’s a little full. What a special knock this.
The increased intent meant that the Sri Lankan bowlers had to venture out of their comfort zone. He also didn’t send them a telegram on when he would attack – something that took the visitors aback when it actually came to fruition.
At times, he targeted the last two balls of the over – as it happened in the 31st and 35th over. On other occasions, he transferred the pressure onto the bowler early – as happened in the 35th, 37th, 41st, 50th and 51st over.
At no point, though, did any of those attacking shots look out of place. This, for those who might have forgotten, was a pink-ball Test being played out with a series still to be won.
If anything, this was the sort of game where a bit of tentativeness and a bit of pushing and prodding would have worked. But who needs pushing and prodding when you can pump the ball over the fence – in a wide-ranging arc and against a variety of bowlers and deliveries?!
Shreyas Iyer was tactically flexible against Sri Lanka
Another impressive aspect about this essay was the tactical flexibility Shreyas displayed. There were instances where the Sri Lankan spinners applied a bit of pressure and bowled a string of dot balls. Shreyas, though, always found a way to play the shot they least expected.
At one stage, he attempted a lap and a switch hit - shots that he does not even play in the shortest format. Here, however, he felt that it was what was needed to muddle Sri Lanka’s lines and lengths. To be fair to him, he largely succeeded.
In many ways, this was a brash proclamation of how India’s next-gen batters (including Shreyas obviously) want to approach Test cricket. Shreyas, for those wondering, can still grind it out and back his defensive technique – unlike many others.
Yet, when the situation demands, he will almost always place fighting fire with fire as his first priority. That, by the way, takes tons of bravery, courage and skill. Shreyas, though, even in the early stages of his Test career, has shown that he has those qualities in abundance.
Furthermore, if India are going to encounter such tracks – pitches where a ball will inevitably have your number, Shreyas’ method to his madness seems sustainable.
For the past couple of years, India have encountered a lot of similar surfaces. But on most occasions, their middle order, comprising of Ajinkya Rahane and Cheteshwar Pujara hoped for some divine intervention to turn the tide their way. The aforementioned batters made a living playing safety-first cricket, hence their sudden tweak to a more aggressive approach made little sense.
As for Shreyas, and to an extent Pant, this approach makes plenty of sense. Not just because their first instinct is usually to attack, but also because they are (at the cost of sounding ridiculous) modern white-ball players clad in Indian whites, longing to unfurl their entire repertoire of strokes and leave those watching spellbound.
There is a reason why I keep saying that Shreyas Iyer is India's most destructive traditional spin hitter.
It happened for a brief phase for Pant at Bengaluru, and happened for almost the entirety of Shreyas’ essay. The latter hasn’t played truckloads of Test matches, and there will always be a school of thought that he needs to make such outings the norm, rather than the anomaly.
Yet, it must also be remembered that not many cricketers are able to bring the Chinnaswamy Stadium to their feet – like Shreyas did with a mixture of audacity, belligerence and caution. These words aren’t meant to be used in the same sentence. But when talking about Shreyas, it feels they were always meant to.