Shreyas Iyer or Suryakumar Yadav - who would you rather have in your T20 team?

If anything, it was a yardstick of India’s archaic philosophy, deep-rooted in multiple levels, and the same barometer has now ensured Shreyas Iyer being part of the Indian side in T20 cricket, post-2019 World Cup clean-up. It is a dramatic turn-around for his fortune but the oddity in the timing has left a dire aftertaste. Iyer is a terrific batsman in the 50-over format, where he can be a great support to Virat Kohli in managing chaos in the middle-overs, but the street-smartness can’t guarantee a role in a format like T20s which has evolved in the last decade, taking anchors off the chart.

The ongoing Indian Premier League serves as a great indicator of how things have shaped up in the last half a decade. In that context alone, it is baffling that someone like Suryakumar Yadav is uncapped at the international level while the likes of Manish Pandey and Iyer or heck, Virat Kohli for that matter, is a regular in the shortest format. Delhi Capitals might boast of a great line-up of Indian talents but sans Rishabh Pant, none has equipped themselves to T20 cricket as successfully. Prithivi Shaw, Shikhar Dhawan and Iyer himself can do the anchor job to perfection - with an occasional burst of brilliance where the strike rate goes beyond 150 SR - but mostly, their conservative style of play adds the pressure on Pant, who is easily one of the finest six-hitters in the sport going around.

In the match against Chennai Super Kings, Iyer came out to bat just after Prithvi Shaw’s dismissal and even though the side had already crossed the 100-run barrier by the 13th over, he failed to take off. What transpired after that was a show of downgraded batting performance, with the skipper accumulating just 26 runs off 22 balls, ensuring his side finished with a total of 175 runs. Sure enough, the dew was not prevalent to make batting easier but Iyer’s innings gave the struggling CSK spinners a chance to make a comeback and not the other way around. 

It is only against right-arm off-break bowlers he averages 64.4 in this period - an accent of almost 24 than his average against Left-arm Orthodox spinners which is his second best. That makes him a one-trick pony and more prone to being dismissed after being set in the middle in the shortest format, unlike his heroics in the 50-overs game, a glimpse of which we have seen during India’s New Zealand tour. 

Quinton de Kock’s dismissal in the second over of the innings brought a sense of ambiguity to the Mumbai Indians line-up, but Yadav ensured that Rohit had a confident partner to play around. Even though Rohit Sharma initially took his time to settle down, which resulted in Mumbai facing 17 dot balls in the powerplay, they were at 59/1 in 6 overs, largely down to Suryakumar Yadav not being bogged down by the change in pace on offer.