Shreyas Iyer has hit a purple patch and dominated the Sri Lankan bowlers in all three games of the recently concluded T20I series that India won 3-0. Iyer bagged the Man of the Match on Sunday night, as he did on Saturday night, and also the Man of the Series award.
He finished the series with 204 runs in three games that are now a record for an Indian batter in a T20I series of 3 or fewer matches. He went past former captain Virat Kohli’s tally of 199 runs that Kohli accumulated in the 2016 series in Australia.
There are only four other batsmen – Colin Munro, David Warner, Glenn Maxwell, and Hazratullah Zazai – who have score 204 runs or more than Iyer’s 204 in a bilateral T20I series comprising three of fewer matches.
Iyer joined Kohli in becoming only the second Indian batsman to register three half-centuries in a 3-match T20I series; Kohli had recorded three fifties in as many games in that 2016 Australia series.
Among Indians, Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul are other Indian batters who have scored three consecutive T20I series. While Kohli has done it thrice (2012,2014,2015), Rahul has done it twice (2020, 2021), Rohit (2018)and Iyer (2022) have done it once in their T20I careers.
In the absence of the rested Kohli and the injured Suryakumar Yadav, who has replaced Iyer in the pecking order, the new KKR captain grabbed the opportunities against Sri Lanka with both hands. He remained unbeaten in all three innings – scoring 57*, 74*, and 73* at a sky-high strike rate of 174.
Shreyas Iyer described the fifty in the second T20I – where he helped India in a big run chase as the most special one of the three, and also talked about his roller-coaster journey in the last year when he injured his shoulder, was left-out of the T20 World Cup squad, and now has made a solid comeback.
“Obviously, all three fifties were special for me. Yesterday, winning the series…so yeah the last one (2nd T20I),” Shreyas said.
“To be honest, you require just one ball to get in form. I’m really happy with whatever opportunities I got this series. The wicket was a bit two-paced today and I was playing on merit and trying to punish the loose balls. You just have to back your instincts and be positive.”
“It has been a roller-coaster journey for me from injury. To come out of injury and perform at this level is really heartening for me,” the 27-year-old concluded.
