Shreyas Iyer, who was named in India’s T20I squad for the upcoming series against West Indies and Australia on Friday night, celebrated his call-up by scoring a scintillating 148 off 114 balls in the Deodhar Trophy final. However, his herculean knock went in vain as India B fell 29-run short while chasing India C’s mammoth target of 353 at the Ferozshah Kotla stadium on Saturday (October 27).
It was Shreyas Iyer’s fifth ton in List A cricket and his innings was studded with 11 boundaries and 8 sixes. Iyer’s team might have lost the match but his batting exhibition certainly justified the selectors’ decision to pick him in the national T20I side.
"I was disappointed in the end for not being able to finish the match. That's because we came so close to chasing a big target, and I could have easily taken a single on the Rahul Chahar ball I got out on. I was in good flow, and went for the six. But in the end the biggest positive is that I got the team to 320 at least. Had we taken the charge from the first ball itself, we would have ended up getting 150,” Iyer quoted as saying by Cricketnext.
"When you're batting at number three, you need to play that anchor role especially when you're chasing such high targets. It was really important for me to bat till the very end and my focus was only to get a good start. Once I got set, I backed my instincts to get the runs. I wanted to bat till the 40th over, and that's how I built my innings," he added.
Iyer hasn’t been able to secure his place in the Indian team after a handful of games in ODIs and T20Is. While saying this latest call-up didn’t get him too excited, he insisted there was no jealousy among the group of batsmen.
"This time when I got selected for the Indian team, I didn't react much,” he said. “The simple reason for that was that I wanted to concentrate on the match and do well here. When you play in the Deodhar Trophy you should understand that you're here because you've done well. I knew that I'm in the selectors' scheme of things so performing well here was of utmost importance.
"It's a great thing when there is competition and challenge. So the person aiming to go higher will have to do even better. All of us are in that zone currently," Iyer concluded.
