Kolkata Knight Riders splurged a lot of money on Shreyas Iyer in the auction after appointing him as their captain in 2022. After taking reins, Iyer’s returns were quite modest. KKR won only six out of 14 matches in the 2022 season, finishing seventh in the points table. In 2023, Iyer missed the entire season due to an injury. Nitish Rana led KKR but the side limped throughout the tournament and finished seventh again.
Stakes were high for Shreyas Iyer as he returned to lead the side in 2024. His career has already been muddled with a number of controversies and he had to earn the trust of the selectors with his performance.
The rest is history. Shreyas Iyer and Gautam Gambhir joined hands to cap off a memorable year for the franchise. KKR dominated the 2024 season of the Indian Premier League. Especially astonishing was the way they simply brushed aside the Sunrisers Hyderabad in both the first Qualifier and the final.
Praises were showered on mentor Gautam Gambhir as he went on to become the Indian national coach after his superlative effort with KKR. Shreyas Iyer’s captaincy though was a mere footnote.
KKR wanted to retain Shreyas Iyer for obvious reasons post the 2024 IPL season. However, Iyer had other plans. He wanted to go under the hammer at the auction. Venky Mysore and the KKR management had to let their IPL winning skipper go. Shreyas became the second highest paid Indian cricketer to be bought at the auction.
Punjab Kings went all out for him and got him for a staggering ₹26.75 crores in the mega auction. Shreyas must have been delighted, but he was unfazed at the outset as he continued his rich run in domestic level cricket. Iyer carried the same form in India’s victorious Champions Trophy campaign in 2025 and came to lead PBKS, sky high on confidence.
Punjab Kings have won 4 out of their 6 matches in IPL 2025 so far and among some major positives, Shreyas Iyer’s captaincy stands out for them, especially after defending the lowest ever total in IPL history against KKR. Does Iyer the captain deserve more recognition?… pic.twitter.com/JYgTd1VkTJ
— RevSportz Global (@RevSportzGlobal) April 16, 2025
Yesterday, Iyer did something special. Punjab Kings got bowled out for a mere 111, after choosing to bat first. Clearly, the Mullanpur track in Chandigarh offered variable bounce and some turn.
KKR was targeting a 14 overs finish to soar to the top of the points table. Despite losing Sunil Narine and Quinton De Kock in the space of two overs, KKR looked well on track with captain Ajinkya Rahane and Angkrish Raghuvanshi looking well set. Then came the match defining moment.
Yuzvendra Chahal is an IPL legend. However, before yesterday, he was going at more than 11 runs per over and was averaging close to 83 this season. Chahal had Rahane pinned on his back knee roll as he attempted a sweep. The umpire took a bit of time to raise his finger and Rahane did not review. Replays would go on to show the impact was outside off and Rahane was not out. With only 50 odd runs remaining, Rahane would have thought the other batters would do the job for the team. But Shreyas Iyer had other plans.
With the pitch occasionally keeping low and turning, Iyer had no hesitation in turning to Glenn Maxwell as his fifth bowling option. Remember, PBKS had used up Suryansh Shedge as their batting impact sub and they were a bowler short. Maxwell bowled a fairly tight over as the teams went for a strategic timeout.
Things turned around dramatically when Chahal got rid of Raghuvanshi in the first over after the time out. Sensing an opportunity with two new batters at the crease, Shreyas got attacking fields for both of them, denying them any easy singles or twos. The strangulation worked with Venkatesh Iyer missing a desperate sweep against Maxwell and getting trapped in front. Even before the DRS came, Iyer looked extremely convinced that he and his team had their man.
Chahal went on to bowl his third over on the trot and got Rinku Singh off an absolute peach. The ball gripped and turned past Rinku as he was beaten and stranded outside his crease. The keeper Josh Inglis delightfully took the bails off as KKR sank further. Although this was a Chahal special, the wicket was manufactured by Iyer’s captaincy.
A slip and a close catching fielder awaited Rinku as Iyer attacked relentlessly. Ramandeep Singh got out to a golden duck and boy did Iyer celebrate or what. A slip, a leg slip and a silly point for Ramandeep told you Iyer was breathing heavily down his former team’s neck. Most importantly, Iyer was chatting with Chahal continuously and asked him to bowl slow while looping it up. As he revealed in the post match presentation, the ball was keeping low and gripping, so sweeping would be difficult on this track and this is where they could get KKR on the mat.
As my colleague Trisha Ghosal pointed out in the post match live yesterday, any captain would have been tempted to go with Maxwell for his third over, considering he conceded only five off his two with the wicket of Venkatesh Iyer. But here, Shreyas delivered an absolute masterstroke as he turned to his frontline left-arm seamer, Marco Jansen. With the tail ender Harshit Rana at the crease, Jansen made him dance to his tune and eventually got rid of him as Rana chopped on. This was Jansen’s third over and only the 13th over of the match. What does this tell you? That Shreyas knows if his former team bats the full 20 overs, they will get to the target. The only way PBKS can snatch this is by taking wickets. Iyer left no stone unturned as he got Chahal to bowl his full quota. With 8 down, Andre Russell took it upon himself to finish things off by tonking Chahal for 16 in that over.
Immediately, Iyer turned to India’s most successful T20I bowler, Arshdeep Singh. KKR tail ender Vaibhav Arora was all at sea as Arshdeep continuously changed angles and made life hard for the number 10. Vaibhav couldn’t keep out Arshdeep as he fended a short ball targeted towards his body to Josh Inglis off the last ball of that over. Now, here also look at the field placements. With third man and fine leg back, the plan was to bowl short to the tailender instead of yorkers. Jansen and Arshdeep not only bowled stump to stump, they refused to give any swinging room for the tailenders. And remember, Iyer was not going to make their lives easy by offering them a bit of Glenn Maxwell. By the way, this was Arshdeep’s third over and only the 15th of the innings. Iyer had no hesitation in finishing off Jansen’s quota as the latter castled Russell to script a fairytale win for PBKS.
Even after this heist, the message was loud and clear from captain Shreyas post-match. He told his team to remain humble. What was KKR’s CEO Venky Mysore thinking as he caught up with Shreyas Iyer post-match? Gautam Gambhir walked away with all the limelight post the 2024 heroics by KKR. Iyer was a mere shadow.
But remember, leader Shreyas Iyer is not a mere footnote, he is the story. Gambhir must be watching this somewhere and maybe thinking in his mind, has India found their next One Day Internationals captain? Only time will tell.