The Indian Premier League- IPL 2022 season is slated to begin from March 26 onwards. On Saturday, reigning champions Chennai Super Kings will face two-time champions Kolkata Knight Riders at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai in the first match of this year's competition (March 26).
KKR finished second in last year's competition, and they'll be looking to go one better this season and end an eight-year wait for their third IPL triumph.
The franchise made some interesting decisions for the 2017 season during the big auctions in Bengaluru last month, and one of the highlights was the marquee acquisition of Shreyas Iyer. The 27-year-old Mumbaikar was bought for Rs 12.25 crores by Shah Rukh Khan co-owned team in the auction and was later given the captaincy as well.
And, going into IPL 2022, Shreyas Iyer is in the best form of his life. In the three-match T20I series against Sri Lanka last month, he hit three unbeaten fifties in a row and was one of the finest performers in the two-match Test series that followed.
He hit fifty in both innings of the second Test, which was contested over two days and nights in Bengaluru.
Aakash Chopra claims on his YouTube channel that the new KKR skipper, who is one of the most in-form bats at the moment, would be among the tournament's leading run-getters.
"Who will be the highest run-scorer this year? They have Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer, Nitish Rana, Sam Billings, and Andre Russell. It looks like a good batting lineup. Among them, I feel Shreyas Iyer will score the most runs. Shreyas Iyer will make so many runs this year that he will be in the Orange Cap race. "
He also projected that Varun Chakravarthy, the mystery spinner who was one of the four players retained by KKR, would be the most successful bowler for the franchise.
"Who is going to take the most wickets? This is not a team where one bowler picks up a lot of wickets; they work together. They have two mystery spinners: Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy, Pat Cummins, Umesh Yadav, and Shivam Mavi. So the wickets will be split. I am saying the most wickets will be in Varun Chakravarthy's account," he added.
Shreyas Iyer, who has now represented India in all three formats of the game, has appeared in 87 IPL games for the Delhi Capitals since making his debut in 2015, scoring 1916 runs at a strike rate of 31.66. He is the only captain to have led Delhi to the IPL finals.
