India kicked off their tour of New Zealand in memorable fashion, with a six-wicket triumph in the first T20I at Eden Park in Auckland, as India chased down 204 with ease. While KL Rahul (56 from 27) and skipper Virat Kohli (45 from 32) shone brightly again, it was Shreyas Iyer who was the real hero of the match for India. After Rahul and Kohli fell within a couple of overs of each other, and Shivam Dube too could contribute only 13, Iyer ensured that he took India past the winning line with a brilliant unbeaten half-century, a knock that should give him a lot of confidence as it has come away from home.
With his innings of 58 not out from 29 balls, Iyer has raised hopes that he can be the number four for India in T20Is for a longer duration and, perhaps, the finisher India are so desperately seeking. During his unbeaten knock at Auckland on Friday, Iyer demonstrated that he possesses most of the qualities needed to become a successful finisher in T20I cricket. A finisher needs to anchor the innings in case of loss of quick wickets, at the same time ensure that the run-rate does not spiral out of control.
Iyer ticked both of the above boxes during his Eden Park innings. When three wickets fell between the 10th and 14th over, New Zealand were not only right back in the game, but actually gained the upper hand as India had a massive 200-plus target to chase. However, Iyer, who captains Delhi Capitals in the Indian Premier League, shouldered the responsibility of taking India through and did so successfully. He played some outrageous shots in his quick-fire half-century, which included five fours and three sixes.
Iyer’s knock is significant in the sense that India have been struggling with their middle order for a while now. There was a point in time when India had three of the greatest T20I finishers playing for the same team. However, with MS Dhoni’s big-hitting prowess on the wane, and attacking southpaws Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina running out of favor with selectors, India’s T20I fortunes dripped drastically over the last couple of years. Often, one of the prime reasons for their defeat was the unavailability to get the final push while batting.
If one takes a closer look at India’s T20I performances over the last year, they lost 2-0 to Australia at home. In the first game of the series at Visakhapatnam in February, they could only post 126 on the board despite batting for the entire duration of 20 overs. At Bengaluru against South Africa in September they were restricted to 134, again batting out their full quota. Even Bangladesh registered their maiden T20I triumph against India as they chased down 149 in Delhi in November. A month later, West Indies won by eight wickets at Thiruvananthapuram, chasing 171.
In each of the above defeats, India faltered as they could not score enough runs in the middle and death overs. This has been India’s Achilles heel in both ODIs and T20Is in the last couple of years. While it is too early to conclude that India have found a solution of sorts in Iyer, the signs are definitely encouraging. Although Iyer has only featured in 18 T20Is for India, he is a highly experienced cricket in the format with 3,228 runs in 121 matches at a strike rate of 131.59 with two hundreds and 21 fifties.
If Manish Pandey can get a consistent run in the middle-order, India can have a dangerous finisher trio in Pandey, Iyer and all-rounder Hardik Pandya, once the latter returns from injury. With the World T20 coming up, India must look to work towards strengthening this aspect of their game, and not repeat the obvious mistakes committed during World Cup 2019.