Shreyas hasn't featured in India's Test set-up since India's home Test series against England earlier this year
Shreyas Iyer, who is out of favor for the Indian Test team and also out of the central contract, finally scored his first first-class hundred after three years. The right-handed batter brought up his ton during the Ranji Trophy second-round match between Mumbai and Maharashtra on Saturday.
This will be a very important century for KKR’s skipper Shreyas, who earlier this year took his team to the title in IPL 2024. It could really give him the much-needed momentum into his batting. Coming at a time when IPL retentions are around the corner, it might give a small hope to his franchise that he is back among runs.
IPL 2024 champions, KKR, could face a tough dilemma regarding their retentions, but they are likely to retain captain Shreyas Iyer and Sunil Narine, who was the most valuable player (MVP). They may also keep either Andre Russell or Phil Salt, along with Rinku Singh, their pocket dynamite, and Venkatesh Iyer.
Harshit Rana could be retained as an uncapped player, as he didn’t feature in the T20I series against Bangladesh. KKR may also use the Right to Match (RTM) card for Mitchell Starc, who had a slow start but delivered brilliantly in the playoffs, and Varun Chakravarthy, whose IPL performances earned him a comeback to the T20I squad.
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In the Ranji Trophy match against Maharashtra, Shreyas walked out to bat at No.5, following skipper Ajinkya Rahane’s dismissal. He brought up his century off just 131 balls. Batting alongside young opener Ayush Mhatre, the pair put up a strong 200-run stand and took Mumbai past the 400-mark. Shreyas was eventually dismissed for 142 off 190 balls, hitting 12 fours and 4 sixes.
Of late, Shreyas Iyer has been registering a poor string of scores. In Duleep Trophy, Shreyas only managed 154 runs in six innings, with just two fifties and two ducks. In the Irani Cup match for Mumbai, Shreyas managed 57 and 8 in two innings. The batter then registered another duck in the opening round of the Ranji Trophy against Baroda.
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This has been a long drought for Iyer, who hasn’t featured in India’s Test set-up since India’s home Test series against England earlier this year. The 29-year-old last FC hundred came in India colors in November 2021 against New Zealand in Kanpur.
He has also now scored 6000 First Class runs during this knock of 142 runs against Maharashtra. However, he needs to deliver in every match to be in the view of the selectors as players such as Sarfaraz khan, KL Rahul and Dhruv Jurel, are still above in the pecking order.
Not long ago, Shreyas Iyer was one of India’s standout performers in the 2023 World Cup, scoring 530 runs, including two centuries and three fifties in the tournament.
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