Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) coach Brendon McCullum on Friday (March 25) showered rich praise on Shreyas Iyer, saying their new skipper has all the qualities to be the franchise's "player of the decade".
During the IPL 2022 mega-auction last month, KKR had roped in Shreyas for a hefty sum of INR 12.25 crore and he was also appointed captain of the franchise.
Iyer has the experience of captaining the IPL side Delhi Capitals. He produced impressive results for DC, leading the franchise to playoffs in 2019 and then followed it with their maiden appearance in the final in 2020.
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"He's a great buy. He could be the franchise player for KKR for the best part of the decade. We've got to start somewhere and that's tomorrow," McCullum said on the eve of KKR’s match against Chennai Super Kings.
"He's already incredibly well-respected around the world for what his game is about and what he's been able to achieve. His best years are certainly in front of him."
"I think he's got the potential to be an absolute superstar of the game so I can't wait to work with him."
In his last T20I series outing, Shreyas Iyer earned the Player-of-the-Series award against Sri Lanka. With Virat Kohli resting for the series, the right-hander was promoted to No. 3 and he returned with 204 runs in three games at a blistering strike rate of 174.35.
McCullum is excited to work with Iyer as he believes KKR’s new skipper shares the same sort of attacking mindset he had during his playing days.
"We both share a common value of how we like to see the game played, which is you get a group of guys together, paint a vision and get the guys play the game positively, and try and embrace those who are around you.
"We all will go on a journey together to try and achieve something not just special in terms of results but also in terms of the investment, which hopefully we're going to talk about for many years to come. So I'm really, really excited to work with Shreyas," the former New Zealand captain said.
McCullum also confirmed that Kiwi pacer Tim Southee won't be available for the tournament opener against CSK.
The team is already missing their star Australian fast bowler Pat Cummins, who will be unavailable for the first five matches due to national commitments.
"Southee is not available for the first match unfortunately, just a little delayed with getting over here to India. So, he won't be available for the first match," McCullum said.
In absence of Southee and Cummins, Knight Riders will rely on Umesh Yadav and Shivam Mavi to give early breakthroughs.
"We would probably go with more of a heavy Indian local players seam bowling lineup.
"Umesh Yadav was a really good pickup for us in the auction. His ability to swing the ball up front, and he's also a wicket-taker too," McCullum said.
"His statistics in the Power Play are really, really good. And that's what we look to try and use him.
"So hopefully, between him and the likes of Shivam Mavi and a couple of the other boys we're going to be able to hopefully get a couple of early wickets and then allow our spinners to enter the game with us on top," he said.
(With PTI inputs)
