Sports
Shreyas scripts massive batting record in T20Is, surpasses Kohli in elite list
Shreyas Iyer seems to have hit the purple patch with the bat and it’s a great sign for the Indian team, given the fact that the next T20 World Cup is just months away. Shreyas on Sunday notched up his third consecutive half-century in the shortest format to help India whitewash Sri Lanka in the three-match series.
The in-form batter, who hit nine fours and one six in his 45-ball 73, remained unbeaten in the T20I series. He had registered unbeaten scores of 57 and 74 in India’s first two wins and the right-handed batter continued his phenomenal run in the third game too.
Shreyas had a topsy-turvy ride last year after undergoing surgery that kept him out of action for a significant amount of time. He has flourished since his return and his 200-plus runs against Sri Lanka is a testament to his batting prowess. With his run-scoring spree, Shreyas has also surpassed former skipper Virat Kohli on the list of most runs by an Indian batter in a three-T20I bilateral series. Kohli previously held the record with 199 runs against Australia back in the 2015/16 series. Kohli had also hit three half-centuries at a strike rate of 160.48.
Most runs in 3-match T20I series for India:
204 – Shreyas Iyer vs Sri Lanka in 2022
199 – Virat Kohli vs Australia in 2016
183 – Virat Kohli vs West Indies in 2019
164 – KL Rahul vs West Indies in 2019
159 – Rohit Sharma vs New Zealand in 2021
Interestingly, only David Warner has scored more runs than Shreyas in a three-match bilateral T20I series. The Australian opener had hit 217 runs in three innings against Sri Lanka in 2019, which included two half-centuries and a ton.
Talking about scoring a hat-trick of fifties in the shortest format, Shreyas is the fourth Indian batter to achieve the feat. Kohli, Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul have already ticked off the milestone. But when it comes to the bilateral T20I series, Shreyas is only the second Indian cricketer after Kohli to hit three consecutive half-centuries.
As India completed the series sweep and recorded their 12th straight T20I win to equal Afghanistan’s record, Shreyas described his fifty in the second game as extra special. He also weighed in on his long injury lay-off and said it just takes one ball for him to get into form.
“Obviously, all three fifties were special for me. Yesterday, winning the series…so yeah the last one (2nd T20I),” Shreyas said.
“To be honest, you require just one ball to get in form. I’m really happy with whatever opportunities I got this series. The wicket was a bit two-paced today and I was playing on merit and trying to punish the loose balls. You just have to back your instincts and be positive.”
“It has been a roller-coaster journey for me from injury. To come out of injury and perform at this level is really heartening for me,” concluded the 27-year-old batter.
Complete News Source : Hindustan Times
Cricket
KL Rahul dangerously close to Laxman territory; to be perished for Sarfaraz Khan and Shubman Gill
To accommodate both Sarfaraz and Gill and stick with their five-bowler formula, a batter from the Bengaluru Test must make way. Ergo Rahul and the predicted axe
VVS Laxman went through the first half of his illustrious 15-and-a-half-year international career with the proverbial axe hanging over him. Despite his magical stroke-play and a well-founded reputation for rallying the lower order to bat above itself, he was forever the first name that sprang to the decision-makers’ minds when they had to drop someone to accommodate someone else. It wasn’t until the second half of his stint with the national team that he had ‘job security’, which automatically manifested itself in an array of glorious, match-turning knocks and earmarked him as one for a crisis.
KL Rahul is now dangerously close to approaching the Laxman territory, though at least in this instance, a case can be made out, perhaps, for why he often seems to be playing for his place. Almost a decade after his Test debut in Australia in December 2014, he has yet to nail down a permanent spot, a result of glaring inconsistency and repeated dalliances with injuries that have left him with a modest average of 33.87 from 53 Test appearances.
Unlike Laxman, who was thrust to the opener’s position for three years from 1997, successive team managements have worked overtime to create space for Rahul. He started off in the middle order in Melbourne against Australia, opened in the next Test in Sydney when he made a sparkling century, continued in that position for a good nine years – around the large pockets when either injuries or lack of form relegated him to the sidelines – and now seems to have found his calling in the middle order, where he was tried out in an almost last throw of the dice in South Africa last December.
In his limited time at the No. 6 position, Rahul has been a revelation. On a spiteful surface in Centurion in his first innings back in the middle order, the classy right-hander made a marvellous 101 – Virat Kohli’s 38 was the next highest score – in India’s 245 all out. Two Tests later, against England in Hyderabad, he waltzed to 86 of the best until a hamstring strain kept him out of the last four Tests.
On his comeback last month against Bangladesh, Rahul showed why he is rated so highly, and therefore why he so frustrates when he chooses to shackle himself mentally, with uninhibited shot-making when India were pressing for a declaration (Chennai) and looking to make up for lost time with a frenetic batting approach (Kanpur) in the two Tests. Kanpur was especially mesmeric, 68 flowing off his bat in a mere 43 deliveries. It was the best of Rahul.
Axe hangs over Rahul’s head for India vs New Zealand 2nd Test
And yet here we are, two innings later, wondering whether he will, or should, feature in the playing XI in Pune, where India take on New Zealand in a must-win second Test from Thursday.
Shubman Gill, him of three centuries in his last six Tests, missed the Bengaluru defeat to the Kiwis with a stiff neck. Replacement batter Sarfaraz Khan made the most of own good fortune with a delectable 150, which makes it near impossible to drop him now that Gill is fully fit. To accommodate both Sarfaraz and Gill and stick with their five-bowler formula which has worked beautifully in the last few years, a batter from the Bengaluru Test must make way. Ergo Rahul and the predicted axe.
One of the few men to have led India in all three formats internationally, Rahul didn’t help his cause with scores of 0 and 12 at his home ground, the M Chinnaswamy Stadium. In the first innings, he was strangled down leg-side by William O’Rourke while in the second, he received a peach from the same paceman operating with the second new ball and was again caught behind. Rahul was one of 11 failures in India’s first-innings 46 and one of seven wickets to fall in 93 deliveries to the second new cherry, but failures past and the logjam created by Gill’s availability have combined to identify him as the most susceptible to the axe.
It’s a cross impossible to bear, but also impossible to ignore just because it is so heavy, so overarching. Rahul is beyond gifted and makes batting appear oh-so-simple, but his struggles to embrace sustained run-making can’t be wished away. He is the eternal team man, much like his celebrated namesake also from Karnataka – both kept wickets admirably in 50-over World Cups 21 years apart, both made attractive and impactful runs during the tournament and both tasted bitter defeat at the hands of Australia in the final – but ‘eternal team man’ can sometimes be an euphemism for the ‘most dispensable’ and Rahul can be excused for thinking that those two lines have blurred beyond repair. Of course, if he is brutally honest to himself, he will acknowledge at least to himself that he too must bear culpability for the blurring of the lines.
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