For a brief moment on Day 1, India captain Rohit Sharma took refuge in batter Shreyas Iyer in the second session of the fourth Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test match against Australia in Ahmedabad today.
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The flat nature of the surface at the Narendra Modi Stadium hadn’t allowed Indian bowlers to pick a wicket in the afternoon session. As a result, Sharma opted for a left-field option right before the tea break by introducing a sixth bowler in the form of Iyer into the attack.
A harmless over witnessed Iyer giving away just a couple of runs but his first ball got converted into a source of amusement for Sharma, in particular.
Rohit Sharma convulses with laughter as Shreyas Iyer bowls rank full toss to Steve Smith
It all happened on the first delivery of the 62nd over when Iyer bowled a rank full-toss to Australia captain Steven Smith (38). Not interested in committing any sort of mistake by accepting a greedy run-scoring opportunity in the last over before the tea break, Smith guided the ball to long-off for a single in spite of it being an ideal delivery to be hit.
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Taking into consideration his bowling skills, it wasn’t a surprise that Iyer couldn’t pitch the ball in the first attempt. Having said that, the same was enough for Sharma to have a laugh about it.
Shreyas Iyer bowling stats
Iyer, who has bowled six times across 89 white-ball matches for India, was asked to bowl for the first time in Test cricket on Thursday. Not known for his bowling for obvious reasons, an astute Iyer bowled leg-spin to right-handed Smith and off-spin to left-handed Usman Khawaja.
In the 7.3 overs that Iyer has bowled across formats at the highest level, he has conceded 43 runs at an economy rate of 5.73 without picking a wicket thus far.
