Duleep Trophy: Shreyas Iyer smashes blistering half-century in Anantapur

Trailing by four runs, India D got themselves off to the worst start possible when Yash Dubey walked off early with just 13 runs on the board. But that didn’t deter Shreyas Iyer from his free-flowing batting. 

Despite a failure in the first innings, where he only scored nine runs, Iyer was seen in an aggressive avatar, with a crunching drive to get off the mark. The Mumbaikar picked up speed in the next over against Vyshak Vijaykumar when he slogged the Karnataka pacer for a six in the long-on region. 

Iyer didn’t stop there. He made another gliding touch through the third-man region for another four before completing the carnage with a four through the midwicket, racing to 18 off just 9 balls. While Iyer did slow down, his approach remained the same throughout his stay at the crease, with an eye on taking on the ‘relatively’ inexperienced bowling unit. 

Even the introduction of Himanshu Chauhan didn’t really slow Iyer down. He smashed four boundaries off Chauhan’s first eight deliveries that he faced. It seemed like there was no stopping Iyer, with the opposition skipper, Ruturaj Gaikwad, spreading his field after being put under immense pressure. 

Fittingly, it was against Chauhan that Iyer brought up his 50, a 39-ball one, one of the fastest in Duleep Trophy history. Iyer used the long-on region to great use, with 35% of his runs during the half-century coming in that region. Fascinatingly, though, 46% of his runs came in the off-side region, where he struck both square and in the third-man region with equal measure. 

Screenshot Courtesy: JioCinema

What was a complete surprise, though, was the fact that Iyer didn't score a single run in the square leg region despite a few short balls coming his way. 

Iyer’s fun came to an end when he hit an innocuous delivery from Anshul Kamboj straight to the hands of Gaikwad, who was standing slightly deep in the long-off region. While he did damage the opposition during his stay, one may wonder what Iyer could have done had he stayed longer at the crease, given how easy batting looked out in the middle. 

That disappointment was visible on his face as he walked back to the dressing room. 

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