Ex-cricketers slam Indian captain, coach after Shreyas Iyer’s selection revelation – India TV

It’s not often that a batter, who gave an all-timer of a World Cup campaign smashing 530 runs at an average of 66 and a strike rate of 133 would not be sure of his place in the playing XI the next time his team plays. But Shreyas Iyer had to wait for someone to pull up sore to be able to fight his place back in India’s ODI side, despite averaging over 50 and having a strike rate of 100 while playing at No 4 for India for a couple of years now. And what did Iyer do? The IPL and Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy-winning captain made sure that his place isn’t even in doubt, hopefully.

Iyer batted at No 4 and was pulling and cutting Jofra Archer’s bouncers like it was nobody’s business. India had lost a couple of wickets early against England in the first ODI in Nagpur and Iyer infused the momentum with a 30-ball half-century. While Gill was solid at the end and took his side to victory, Iyer’s 36-ball 59 was essential in killing the chase for India.

“So, funny story,” Iyer said. “I was watching a movie last night, I thought I could extend my night, but then I got a call from skipper saying that you may play because Virat has got a swollen knee. And then [I] hurried back to my room, went off to sleep straightaway,” Iyer told the host broadcaster Star Sports after the match. Iyer’s revelation suggested that it was him who replaced an injured Virat Kohli and not Yashasvi Jaiswal, who was always going to make his ODI debut on Thursday.

Former India opener Aakash Chopra failed to make sense of Indian management’s thought process given Iyer didn’t need to prove himself time and again. “Trying to wrap my head around the revelation that Iyer wasn’t likely to play if Kohli was fit. He’s the first Indian to score 500+ runs batting at 4 in a World Cup. 2023. How could you bench him?? And if he wasn’t going to play, where was Kohli supposed to bat? At 4? Surely, Gill wasn’t getting pushed to 4,” Chopra wrote on X (previously Twitter).

Making sense of what Iyer just said, Kevin Pietersen and Parthiv Patel couldn’t believe what they just heard. Patel too spoke about it but gave it a more positive way out. 

“Interestingly, in the last 10 ODIs for India, Iyer’s average is 60, and so does Shubman Gill,” Patel told Star Sports. “That is the reason why we all thought that Iyer would be 100% certainty. That is why you should just see Gautam Gambir and Rohit Sharma thinking what kind of combination India should go with in the next game because it looks like India want to go with Jaiswal and Rohit Sharma as openers and not Iyer in the middle order. So that would be very happy headache to have.”

If Kohli is fit for the second ODI in Cuttack, it will be interesting to see how the Indian team management goes about its business in picking the team.