Shreyas Iyer has been the star of India’s twin victories in the ongoing T20I series against Sri Lanka at home, scoring back-to-back half-centuries, at a fiery strike rate. However, senior Indian cricketer Dinesh Karthik feels that Iyer won’t be in the starting XI in India’s T20 World Cup team.
Iyer got his opportunity in the T20I team after former India captain was released from the team last week. In three matches hence – one against West Indies and the other two against Sri Lanka – Iyer scored 25 off 16, 57 off 28 and an unbeaten 74 off 44. All his three knocks came at a strike rate of over 150 and scored a boundary every 4.2 balls.
“ think he is aware at the back of his mind that he may not start at the World Cup. But first step is the book your seat in the flight and he for sure, with these performances, guarantees a strong place or contender. You have to understand that you literally have a set of 4-5 players who can walk into this team and have done well over the period of time. – Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, KL Rahul, I can go on,” he said.
Karthik hailed that the newbies and the fringe players have all performed well for India during their unbeaten run since the last T20 World Cup, which he hails as a good sign for the new team management.
“The good thing is that every player coming into the team is trying to put is name out there saying that I’m ready to play for India and that is as good a sign you can get for a new captain and coach. They had a brilliant run so far with Rohit handling the team. They have been phenomenal. There are so many more matches – IPL and then South Africa will come to India. For the moment, you have to say that Shreyas Iyer has batted brilliantly and you will put a smile on every fan in Kolkata knowing that he is the leader and he is ready to go,” the veteran wicketkeeper-batsman said.
