Former England cricketer Kevin Pietersen has slammed India batter Shreyas Iyer for his poor batting in the ongoing second Test being played in Vizag from February 2nd. Iyer made 27 runs with 4 fours before falling to Tom Hartley.
He has played 59 balls before under-edging an intended cut to the wicketkeeper off the left-arm spinner Tom Hartley. It was a knock noticeable for his odd approach against pace and spin. Anderson tested him with bouncers for a couple of overs with fielders in the deep in catching positions.
Iyer pulled them and held the ball down before changing tactics and beginning to shuffle his outside leg in an attempt to flat-bat it to the off side. It did not come off. The first time he tried, he almost dragged it on his stumps off an inside edge.
“Listen, when Kohli comes back and other guys come back [KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja] and these are the days these boys are going to look back and go, ‘oh why did I not get a hundred? I had the opportunity to get the hundred’. And when you are sloppy like that, getting out doesn’t impress me at all,” Pietersen said on Jio Cinema.
“You got to really grab the game by the scruff of its neck and say I am not letting go here. I am afraid to say with Shreyas it all seems a bit too sloppy. Sloppy is the word,” he added.
Against spinners against whom he is usually fluent, Iyer again tried the shuffling technique. He would shuffle outside leg to Hartley and come back to his original position to defend or push away the balls.
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“When he is facing up to the bowler, he is jogging his leg out to leg side and then comes back to just defend the ball. You go to show some more intent than leg out there. If you really want to make a go and put pressure on the bowler, this (gestures the leg-side shuffling movement) doesn’t put the pressure on the bowler. It does nothing to the bowler. You got to show more intent,” Pietersen added.
When replays were shown of the shuffles and the host wondered if it was to perhaps unsettle the bowler, Pietersen shot back.
“On this wicket, why are you doing that? That’s my question: what’s the point in doing that? What you are doing is you are messing yourself up, losing where your stumps are as a batter. I am more comfortable if you are coming towards the bowler, this here does nothing for me. He has the ability to play some very good shots. But the soft dismissals are horrible. In this form of cricket, you got to be hungry and have desire,” Pietersen said.
“And when you get out in the way he got out, I am afraid to say it’s sloppy. Today’s innings didn’t impress me at all. Because I want people in my dressing room that are more hungry than that,” Pietersen concluded.
(JioCinema inputs)
