Shreyas Iyer pulls a Dhoni with a helicopter shot vs Punjab in Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy. The young batsman played a whirlwind innings of 80 from 40 balls.
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Shreyas Iyer presented yet another good case for himself as the solution for India’s middle order conundrum after performing out of his skins with an impressive knock of 80 against Punjab in the Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy match.
Also read: Best catch ever in T20 Cricket World Cup
The youngster smashed the ball around the park in his 40-ball innings. All in all, the 24-year old registered 7 boundaries and slammed 4 huge sixes; One of which, came straight from the former India captain MS Dhoni’s handbook.
Shreyas Iyer pulls a Dhoni with a helicopter shot vs Punjab in Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy
With an eye on the semi-finals, Mumbai had to win big to give themselves an outside chance of qualifying for the semi-finals. Once Punjab sent them in to bat, Mumbai’s objective was simple; beat Punjab by a margin of 90 runs or more.
Shreyas Iyer took him upon himself to do everything he could to help strengthen Mumbai’s bid. The youngster’s heroic knock took Mumbai to a massive 243. Iyer treated the fans to some of the most delightful shots including a nostalgic helicopter shot.
The shot came in the penultimate over of Mumbai’s innings when Baltej Singh was given the ball. The medium pacer bowled a slower one but Iyer read it perfectly and moved to his backfoot to launch the ball into the stands.
So close and yet so far
Iyer was ably supported by teammate Prithvi Shaw and captain Suryakumar Yadav both of whom scored 53 (27 balls) and 80 (30 balls) respectively. In the end though, the knock proved to be futile. Mumbai still went on to win the match. However, Punjab’s scrappy effort saw them reduce the margin of defeat to a mere 22 runs. This meant that Mumbai’s journey in the tournament was over.
However, Chief of selectors, MSK Prasad hailed the youngster and claimed that he could very well be India’s future in the middle order.
“If you recall, we had inducted Shreyas Iyer (when Virat Kohli was rested) 18 months back into the ODI squad and he has done reasonably well. Unfortunately, we couldn’t continue with him. Having said that, he has evolved as a player now and he can be the solution to our number 4 slot in both ODIs and T20s,” MSK Prasad said as quoted by Sportstar.
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