Former Team India player Robin Uthappa said that Shreyas Iyer boasts a one-of-a-kind persona among Indian cricketers ahead of Iyer’s first assignment as T20I captain in Ireland later this month. However, Iyer has replaced Suryakumar Yadav as India’s T20I captain despite the team’s title-winning run at the 2026 T20 World Cup under SKY as well.
Talking about Iyer, Uthappa said on the CommBoxTV YouTube channel: “He has improved his T20 batting the last few years almost despite the system. He is not a people pleaser. He is his own person and goes against the grain of people in India. He can be aggravatingly annoying because he doesn’t fit the norms of an Indian cricketer. He does his own thing and says pick me if you want to pick me.”
“Iyer has built this persona out of himself into what he is. He has the immense self belief that you see in the best players in the world like Virat and Rohit. He also takes ownership when the stakes are the highest as a batter. He has all the ingredients of a great captain and the aura is different,” he added again.
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Robin Uthappa also said that the constant criticisms from all corners forced Shreyas Iyer to work on and overcome his earlier short-ball weaknesses in white-ball cricket as well.
“He never actually believed he had a problem with the short ball although he was getting out to it. But it was a weakness at a particular point in time. Yet, he took notice of it when people started saying that he is a bunny to the short ball and that he’ll never improve on it. That got his antennas up and got him to work,” said Uthappa again.
“He wanted to prove people wrong and was motivated for it. He addressed it and it was a mindset shift as well. Initially, he tried to take singles to the short ball or a bouncer. Then he took the positive route of looking to score big against the short ball. That helped his body get into better positions. Now he gets tall to play the short ball, which shows the kind of work he has put into it,” he concluded.
