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‘His spot will be up for grabs when Kohli, Suryakumar return’: Ex-IND opener says star batter ‘needs to be better'
After enduring consecutive defeats, the team produced a remarkable comeback in the third encounter and won the contest by 48 runs.
The Indian cricket team led by Rishabh Pant started on a slow note against South Africa in the five-match T20I series, which saw the tourists overpower the hosts in the first two encounters. After enduring consecutive defeats, the team produced a remarkable comeback in the third encounter and won the contest by 48 runs.
The series is being played in the absence of several senior players. The notable absentees are Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Mohammad Shami, Ravindra Jadeja, Suryakumar Yadav, and Jasprit Bumrah.
Now with the above names returning for the upcoming England tour, former India Test cricketer Wasim Jaffer feels Shreyas Iyer's spot in will be in danger.
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In an interaction on ESPNCricinfo, Jaffer noted: "Shreyas Iyer is batting at No. 3 and you always have expectations from your top-order players because [they] get to play more overs. In the last match, it was a very good [opening] partnership and you (Iyer) try to play more shots than usual to continue that momentum and take your team to the score of 190-200. But yes... he needs to be a bit better against fast bowling because they bowl short against him. The T20 World Cup is in Australia where there will be bounce and it won't be easy to score runs square of the wicket on the big grounds. He needs to focus on that and improve a bit.
"... His spot will always be up for grabs when Virat Kohli and Suryakumar Yadav return to the team. But for now, he needs to play well in the next two matches for India to win the series," he added.
Iyer has so far accumulated 90 runs from the three games against South Africa in the series. However, it has come at a comparatively low strike-rate.
The right-handed batter scored 27-ball 36 in the opening encounter, while he knocked a 35-ball 40 in the second match. In the third encounter, Iyer was dismissed on 14 off 11 balls.
