New Delhi: Shreyas Iyer as the new captain of the Delhi Daredevils has won huge appreciation from everyone. He led from the front in his first match as captain through an unbeaten 93 off 40 balls to ensure a 55-runs victory at the Feroz Shah Kotla ground.
As the fourth youngest captain in the history of the Indian Premier League (IPL), this 24-year-old batsman from Mumbai did a remarkable job though he had no prior experience of leading a team.
After Delhi’s win the Delhi fans waved a placard which stated: ‘New Captain and it is New Delhi” announcing that their winning streak will commence with this victory.
Iyer showed no sign of nervousness on leading a team for the first time and made the right moves. To lift a team from a string of defeats wasn’t an easy task.
When asked about how it was to lead the team facing the toughest of challenges, Iyer said: “A great feeling, especially when you're leading for the first time. It is an amazing feeling winning my first game as a skipper.”
Iyer is backed by his personal coach Praveen Amre, who is also the assistant coach of the Delhi Daredevils team.
Speaking to Gulf News, Amre had commented on the youngster, whom he groomed to success: “Shreyas is hugely talented. When I spotted him, he was 19 years old and I realised that he has got a different flair. He was already aggressive and my job was not to curb him but mould him the right way where he can perform better."
"Usually Mumbai batsmen are always told to play in the V and stay on to play bigger innings but Shreyas was one with some special talent always wanting to dominate.”
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Iyer has now displayed his aggressiveness as a captain too but refused to take the full credit for the victory by saying: “All of us contributed, not only me. Prithvi Shaw has been batting well since the start of the season, and the way he's playing is magnificent.
"Colin Munro, too, along with him gave us a fifty-run partnership. Liam Plunkett, he's the go-to guy in the bowling line-up, and the way he came to me and said he would want to bowl the 16th or 17th over, that's good to see from a senior like him.”
It was Iyer’s third consecutive half century following his knocks of 52 against Royal Challengers Bangalore and 57 against Kings XI Punjab.
Amre loves Iyer’s fighting spirt and narrated it by saying how he made his mark and is still fighting to cement his place in the Indian team.
“What I like about Iyer is the fact that in the second year itself he became the second highest run-getter in India with 1,300 runs (in domestic cricket). First year, he got 800 runs and, after his 1,300 runs, he scored 750 runs. In the last three years, he is the highest run-getter for Mumbai.”
Terrific player
Iyer had regularly in UAE based cricket academy Max Talent’s tournaments as a youngster and is also the brand ambassador of this academy’s tribal children’s cricket development programme.
Delhi coach Ricky Ponting, commenting on his new captain, said: “He (Iyer) is a terrific young player. He is a terrific young man. I see a huge future for him in the game. It's my job and all the players' job, to make Shreyas' job is made as easy as possible on the field.”
