Down but not out, Delhi’s Shreyas Iyer confident of regaining form

This season has not gone well for the feisty youngster. His five innings have yielded only 22 runs — a dip that saw him being dropped against Gujarat Lions on Tuesday.

With his take-no-prisoners approach to batting, Shreyas Iyer is the newest poster boy of Mumbai cricket. The 21-year-old made heads turn with his performances in the last Indian Premier League (IPL) season for Delhi Daredevils, emerging as their top scorer with 439 runs.

Shreyas Iyer has scored only 22 runs in five innings. (AFP)

Iyer, in fact, was the only constant in the dithering DD team back then, playing in each of their 14 matches.

This season, though, has not gone well for the feisty youngster. His five innings have yielded only 22 runs — a dip that saw him being dropped against Gujarat Lions on Tuesday. In three of those five innings, Iyer got out without scoring.

Sharp contrast

The figures are in sharp contrast to his performances in last Ranji Trophy season, where he scored 1321 runs for Mumbai, the highest in the competition.

Iyer’s form last season was the reason why DD splurged on youth players from India in this year’s auction. They picked Pawan Negi for Rs 8.5 crore, Sanju Samson for Rs 4.2 crore and Karun Nair for Rs 4 crore.

However, Iyer has no plans to change his technique. He believes that it is only a matter of time before he starts scoring again.“No, I’m not going to change anything. I’m just sticking to what I’ve been doing since the Ranji Trophy. It’s just a matter of time. If I good start, I’ll definitely overcome this hurdle,” Iyer told HT on Monday.

Luckily at Delhi Daredevils, Iyer finds himself sharing the dressing room with Rahul Dravid, who recently coached the Indian colts to under-19 World Cup final, and Iyer’s personal mentor Pravin Amre, who is the assistant coach at DD — both perfectly capable of inspiring him out of this slump.