Venkatesh Iyer's stock plummets just as quickly as it rose
Before the 2021 edition of the Indian Premier League, not many in India knew about Venkatesh Iyer. The all-rounder had been a consistent performer for Madhya Pradesh in domestic cricket but only those with a very keen eye were able to recognise him when he made his IPL bow for the Kolkata Knight Riders and took the tournament by storm.
Prior to the UAE leg, KKR were huffing and puffing. They were woeful in the first leg of IPL 2021 and were touted by many to languish in the lower trenches of the points table. With Venkatesh firing on all cylinders at the top of the order, though, those notions were challenged, and they ultimately changed.
Not only did the all-rounder score 370 runs across 10 essays, he also did so at an average of 41.11 and a healthy strike rate of 128.47, propelling KKR into the summit clash against the Chennai Super Kings. He also bowled a few crucial overs, and cast himself as a potential seam-bowling all-rounder for India.
Around that same time, Hardik Pandya’s future with the Indian cricket team was up in the air. He hadn’t bowled a ball in anger for the better part of two years and his place, purely as a batter in the side, was under a massive cloud. He was still selected for the T20 World Cup – an event that ended disastrously for the Men In Blue.
The paucity of runs against top-quality opposition and the lack of bowling options, in particular, stuck out. So, with Pandya providing neither of those at that juncture, India decided to turn away from him – probably because they felt that in Venkatesh, they had somebody who could take up that mantle.
At that stage, too, many were surprised by the left-handed batter's feverishly rising stock. He had only played one IPL season and even though he had captured the imagination of the cricketing community considerably, it felt that he was a little undercooked.
To his credit, he didn’t let any of that chatter affect him when he made his debut for India. If anything, he told the rest of the world that his ascent into the Indian team wasn’t just based on the 2021 iteration of the IPL. Instead, it was the result of hours of hard work and toil in the domestic circuit – a fact emphasized by the numbers he boasts in List A and T20 cricket.
Venkatesh majorly ticked every box India wanted him to. He batted towards the end of the innings, played the finisher’s role and chipped in with the ball whenever required. It was, in many ways, the sort of balance India craved and were missing, especially as Pandya was battling fitness.
So, when Venkatesh arrived at IPL 2022, he did so as a near-certain T20I starter. Pandya was yet to regain full match fitness and the KKR opener had really done nothing wrong. But then, Pandya began scoring runs. And, more damningly, Venkatesh stopped scoring them. That doesn’t really explain what might be plaguing the KKR cricketer but is perhaps just enough to tell you how much the landscape has changed in the past few weeks.
Check out the IPL purple cap 2022 here.
So Venkatesh Iyer joins the list of Yasasvi Jaisawal, Abdul Samad and Anrich Nortje.
Venkatesh Iyer has endured a tough IPL 2022 season
In 2022, Venkatesh has scored a grand total of 132 runs in nine innings at an average of 16.5. That, by the way, includes a 50-run knock, meaning that in his remaining eight essays, he has just scored 82 runs – a tick over 10 runs per innings on an average. His strike rate has also alarmingly dropped, hovering at 97.78 as opposed to a career T20 strike rate of 132.69 and a T20I strike rate of 162.19.
He has also bowled very sparingly this season – 18 balls in total, and has been a lot more expensive than he was a year ago. In 2021, he was regularly used as a fail-safe option when some of KKR’s bowlers weren’t at their best. This time out, many of his peers have struggled but Venkatesh has only bowled three overs across nine matches – partly because he’s not hit his straps but largely because there seems to be a slight lack of trust in his bowling abilities.
While a top-order batter not bowling shouldn’t really be news, it is a very pertinent aspect when talking about Venkatesh. The only reason he was fast-tracked into the Indian side was because he could double up as a bowler. If pure batting records were considered, there were several other options India could have turned to, and plenty of alternatives they can still rummage for at this point.
Took 10 games for KKR last year to decide they want to retain Venky and it's taken 9 games to drop him this season
So, Venkatesh finds himself at a crossroad where he has lost his spot at KKR. They are, much like last campaign, in a situation where they need to win almost all of their remaining matches. The all-rounder was a pivotal part as they turned things around in the UAE but with him enduring the infamous second season syndrome, there’s no clarity if he will even step onto the field, let alone be the match-winner he can be.
What makes this story more fascinating is that Venkatesh’s stock has fallen just as swiftly as it rose. Back then, a lot of people queried if he had the required quality and if he had done enough to warrant a spot in the Indian cricket team. For much of his international career, he has proved that he indeed did.
Now, though, those murmurs might just start morphing into clamours – clamours that India rushed a non-international standard cricketer into the side just because he could do what others couldn’t. There’s a bit of simple supply-demand mechanics attached to it but what has been conveniently ignored is that Venkatesh also scored a ton of domestic runs before being called up.
Till he regains his form in the IPL, however, it will continue being that way. For many, he was the all-rounder India only looked towards because Pandya was not being useful in multiple suits. The Gujarat Titans skipper has since roared back into form too, meaning that Venkatesh, in a lot of people’s eyes, has become slightly redundant.
It is up to Venkatesh to prove that that isn’t the case. If KKR give him that rope is another matter altogether, considering they have a habit of not trusting their Indian stars (read Kuldeep Yadav and Varun Chakravarthy). But if it comes along, Venkatesh must be ready to grab it with both hands – much like he was in 2021.