When Shreyas Iyer lifted the IPL trophy last year, Kolkata Knight Riders’ third IPL crown, he already knew then that he would not be a part of India’s squad for the T20 World Cup. The T20 showpiece began just a few days following the conclusion of IPL 2024.
Till the last IPL began, Shreyas was in the news mainly for the wrong reasons, which included his omission from the BCCI central contracts. But right through the competition, despite the odds being against him, Shreyas chipped in with important contributions, finishing with an average of 39 and a strike rate of 146.86 — his best numbers in the competition since making his IPL debut in 2015.
Since then, barring the ODI series in Sri Lanka last August when the entire Indian batting unit collectively failed against the Islanders’ spin attack, Shreyas has got most things correct with the bat. In the recent Champions Trophy, he finished with 243 runs — the most by an Indian and the second-best overall.
Shreyas 2.0 is in an ideal headspace at present. As captain of a new team — Punjab Kings — and with Ricky Ponting as the head coach, Shreyas, batting at No. 3 or 4, may further raise the bar.
His strike rate, an issue in the early years, has been on the rise of late. In the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy, Shreyas’s strike rate soared to 188.52 in Mumbai's title-winning campaign. He averaged 49.28 while being the team’s second-highest run scorer after Ajinkya Rahane.
In the Vijay Hazare Trophy, played in the 50-overs format, Shreyas scored two centuries, was dismissed just once and averaged 325.
He is reaping the results of his rigorous training sessions with his coach Pravin Amre at the Bandra Kurla Complex ground before the season began.
“As a coach, we have to work on both skills and fitness. His main issue was his body not being fit because of the shoulder surgery and the back issue. So, I had to wait till he became 100 per cent fit because my sessions are usually very hard,” Amre, also a former India Test batsman and ex-assistant coach of Delhi Capitals, told The Telegraph.
“I told him, ‘Being good is not good enough. You have to update your game and be excellent.’ So, we worked on how he could be excellent in all formats, especially in white-ball cricket,” Amre said.
One may say Shreyas’ actual test against the short ball in pace-friendly conditions is yet to come, but since the England ODIs, he hasn’t really looked to be in much discomfort tackling the short stuff. With a stance more side-on, Shreyas’s high back-lift and opening up of the hip has helped him to pick up the short-pitched ball early and score off it.
“Look, he got over 500 runs (530) in the 2023 (ODI) World Cup, and I think nobody bowled him just over-pitched balls then,” Amre pointed out. “That time also, I was backing him because I knew he had the ability to handle short-pitched balls.
“To be honest, though, nobody is perfect against the short ball. Besides, his average against the short ball earlier used to be 12 and now it’s 40.
“Not just stance, there were many changes we made, but they can’t be shared. Success is not an accident, it’s a process,” Amre said. And Shreyas has aced that process.