"Iyer looked troubled": Former India star on Shreyas omission from remaining Tests against England
Feb 12, 2024
New Delhi [India], February 12 : Former India batter Aakash Chopra believes that Shreyas Iyer looked troubled and needs to improve on his technique to face short ball after he was dropped from the remaining three-match Test squads.
Shreyas struggled in the first two Test matches against England as he amassed scores of 35, 13, 27 and 29. Even in the two-match Test series against South Africa, Iyer struggled to muster up runs as he scored 41 runs in both matches.
"If we are to believe sources, he was available for selection but was left out. And there are reasons for this. He has not scored in the previous 12-13 innings and the way he was batting was not good. It's ok to get out on bouncers, but the way he was trying to tackle them showed that he was not convincing," Chopra said while hosting JioCinema's sports show '#AAKASHVANI.
He went on to compare Iyer's performance with Shubman Gill, who also struggled to put runs on the board but managed to overcome his barren run by scoring a century in the second innings of the second Test.
Chopra feels that even when Gill wasn't scoring runs, he didn't look worried because of his lack of runs. "Both Shubman Gill and Shreyas had been under pressure until recently, but Gill never looked ugly or too worried even though he wasn't getting the runs. But Iyer looked troubled. He needs to work on his technique against the short ball," he added.
With the series currently level on 1-1, India will play their third Test against England in Rajkot on Thursday.
India squad: Rohit Sharma (C), Jasprit Bumrah (VC), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shubman Gill, KL Rahul, Rajat Patidar, Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (WK), KS Bharat (WK), R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel, Washington Sundar, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohd. Siraj, Mukesh Kumar, Akash Deep.
