It was Shreyas Iyer who launched a counter-attack from India in their second innings in the third Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, in Indore, as the Indian batters fought hard for every single run.
India had conceded a first innings deficit of 88 runs. Shreyas Iyer, who had bagged a duck in the first innings, came in at the score or 78/4 in the second innings and played aggressive shots, in particular to Australia’s star in the first innings Matthew Kuhnemann.
Shreyas Iyer launched Matthew Kuhnemann for a couple of sixes and a four, and hit two fours to Nathan Lyon in an inspirational counter-attack.
Shreyas Iyer scored 26 runs in 27 balls, cracking 2 sixes and 3 fours
Though he couldn’t bat for long – he was dismissed by Mitchell Starc, with Usman Khawaja taking a blinder of a catch at short mid-wicket – Shreyas Iyer showed to the other Indian batters that playing attacking shots and putting the pressure back on the Aussie spinners was perhaps the only way to get the scoreboard moving on this raging turner of a pitch at the Holkar stadium.
However, it wasn’t like Iyer attacked from the onset of his innings. He took a little while to assess the conditions – after playing 10 straight dot balls, Iyer opened his account with a brilliant sixer, a cracking pull shot to a slightly dragged-back ball from Kuhnemann.
He then creamed 2 fours off Lyon and one off Kuhnemann before walloping the left-arm spinner for another six over mid-wicket. On the second six, he played it against the turn, but he had enough confidence in his timing and power to nail the pull on the backfoot.
You can watch Shreyas Iyer’s sixes to Kuhnemann here:
Kuhnemann has proven to be a menace to handle for all the Indian batters but Shreyas Iyer, whose counter-attacking knock filled India with confidence again of taking a decent lead.
However, Iyer got out to a spectacular catch from Khawaja off Starc’s bowling.
