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At the start of the match, Shreyas Iyer would probably have polled the fewest votes among the three hometown heroes – Rohit Sharma and Suryakumar Yadav being the other two – to steal the show. By the end of the Indian innings, Iyer’s six-filled 82 (56b, 3×4, 6×6) didn’t just stand out among the Mumbai trio, it also proved to be the knock that blunted whatever slim chances Sri Lanka may have had of making a fist of the target.
Sharma the captain has been batting at his aggressive best and he was who the near capacity Wankhede crowd had come to watch. He lasted only two balls. Surya’s reputation is built on playing shots all around the wicket, and he received a thunderous welcome from the crowd when he came into bat. He hit two straight boundaries to start with, but Sri Lanka didn’t allow him a death overs blitz.
There is unlikely to be any nervous person in the Indian camp, but Iyer wouldn’t be faulted if he had some doubts when he walked to the middle in the 30th over. Coming off two successive false strokes in the previous matches – attempted pulls that went horribly wrong had opened old wounds, his weakness against the short ball.
If he was edgy, he didn’t show it. At 193/2, India had just lost Shubman Gill, for 92. Iyer said there was a message mid-innings from the dressing room that the ball was holding a bit and so they should bide their time.
Iyer respected the message and played out a couple of overs. Then he was away. For the next three overs, he was hitting a six every over. All his maximums came straight; the second one against leg-spinner Dushan Hemantha went 106 metres, the farthest the ball has travelled off the bat in the World Cup so far. The ball landed not far from the press box, where have dissected his technical shortcomings against the bouncer.
Skipper Rohit Sharma gave his vote of confidence to Iyer after the game. “Shreyas is very strong in his mind. Today he did what he is known for. That’s what we expect from him, to take on the bowlers. He has been really working hard on his game and we saw what he can do.”
But truth be said, the Sri Lankan bowling did not have the ammunition or spare energy in the tank to test Iyer’s backfoot technique on Thursday. But the way the India No.4 was able to power the balls away early in his innings every time the bowlers missed their length, it eased any pressure that there might have been.
Iyer’s strength against spin is well known and he took a liking to Hemantha’s leggies. In between, left-arm pacer Dilshan Madushanka was doing his best to keep Sri Lanka in the game with his cutters – he got rid of Virat Kohli too. But Iyer was untroubled.
Despite his limitations, Iyer is one of India’s most productive middle-order batters – he averages close to 50 at a strike rate of 95 – in that phase. Batting fluently, he cut Maheesh Theekshana for four to third man to bring up his fifty in the 43rd over. Raising his bat to the change room, he also seemed to signal, acknowledging the side-arm throwers in the support staff who he had spent considerable time with in training.
When Iyer gets off to good starts, his forceful innings often lays the foundation for the finishing push in the death overs. It was his day and he proved to be the aggressor even in the final overs. KL Rahul and Yadav couldn’t get many. That forced Iyer and Ravindra Jadeja to delay going into overdrive till the 46th over. Then they shifted gears.
In the first ball of the 48th, Iyer swatted Madushanka for a six over mid-wicket. It was just the way he had rehearsed two days earlier in a long net session against another Sri Lankan, Nuwan Seneviratne, one of the two throw down specialists in the Indian squad.
Iyer will face a stiffer challenge, most immediately against South Africa spearheaded by Kagiso Rabada, in the next match at Kolkata. But with runs under his belt, he would be more confident going to a ground that is his second home, being the Kolkata Knight Riders skippers.
The batting star deposited Madhushanka’s next delivery down the ground for another maximum, his sixth of the innings. He got out 18 short of what would have been a great personal milestone. But on a day when the team made a massive statement with a 302 run victory, it didn’t matter one bit.
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