Shamik Chakrabarty at Eden Gardens
Belatedly, he came out of the dressing room and joined the practise session of the Punjab Kings. Some Bengal junior women’s team cricketers had assembled at the club house upper tier at Eden Gardens, and one of them shouted, “Shreyas bhaiya”. Shreyas Iyer turned and raised his bat. He gave a wave to the Kolkata Knight Riders media manager before moving into the team huddle.
At the other end, KKR were practising. On paper, the home team has a bigger star cast than their rivals on Saturday. KKR are an IPL elite with three titles in their bag. Punjab Kings have been the also-rans. But prying eyes of reporters were fixed on their training. No prizes for guessing why.
A subplot shouldn’t ideally supersede the main story. But here, as KKR play almost a win-or-bust game against PBKS, it is spicy enough to take centre-stage. Shreyas won round one, in Punjab, despite getting out for a duck. He lost the battle but won the war, with his team successfully defending 111. What will happen in round two?
Circa 2024 was the season of upheaval for Shreyas. He lost his place in the Indian team and then lost his central contract. In a way, the middle-order batter was a victim of perception. His back spasms issue seemingly cut no ice with the selection committee. He was removed from the BCCI’s annual retainer list ostensibly due to the fact that he didn’t turn up for a Ranji Trophy match for Mumbai.
Shreyas was doing his drills at the KKR academy in Mumbai under Abhishek Nayar. The focus mainly was on building his load. This correspondent was told that he was developing spasms after facing about 60 balls. Shreyas gritted his teeth and led KKR to the IPL title. But Gautam Gambhir’s role as the team mentor was more celebrated. Later, Shreyas would rue the fact that he didn’t get the “recognition” he deserved.
The mega auction year had different dynamics, and KKR and Shreyas eventually parted ways. But the IPL teams knew his value and for a brief while, at the auction last year, he was the most expensive player in IPL history, with PBKS forking out Rs 26.75 crore. Rishabh Pant trumped him, going to Lucknow Super Giants for Rs 27 crore. Still, Shreyas was the second-most expensive buy.
PBKS broke the bank not only for an excellent middle-order player, but more importantly, they wanted to make him their skipper. The Shreyas-Ricky Ponting combination had gelled well at Delhi Daredevils, the team reaching the final in 2020. It’s been working fine at PBKS this term also, with the team fifth in the table with 10 points from eight matches.
Personally, Shreyas has fallen cheaply in the last few matches — three single-digit scores in the last three innings. But PBKS have been thriving on his winning mentality. “I hate losing,” Shreyas has said many times.
Isa Guha, the former England women’s team cricketer, was present at Eden Gardens, as PBKS and KKR trained on Thursday. Asked about Shreyas’s captaincy, she said: “He is one of the leaders who has been impressive in this IPL. He would learn a lot under Ricky’s guidance.”
Shreyas’ session started with a bit of running and stretching followed by catching practice and batting at the nets. As the session drew to a close, Harshit Rana, came running in to greet his former captain. Shreyas put an arm around the KKR pacer’s shoulder and the two trudged off. Rana grew in prominence under Shreyas’s leadership last year and acknowledged that. Once a captain, always a captain.
P. S. The tough phase is now over for Shreyas. He has returned to the Indian white-ball set-up and earned back his central contract. The training sessions at Eden, though, served an irony. Iyer and Nayar are now in rival camps. Maybe, KKR would have been better off without that.