Veteran Team India batter Shreyas Iyer didn’t agree with the common theory about his batting that he has a problem playing the short ball. At a press conference after his brilliant 82 off 56 in India’s win over Sri Lanka, he blamed the media for spreading the “he can’t play a short ball” theory. However, India beat Sri Lanka by a mammoth 302 runs in the 2023 World Cup at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Thursday, November 2 as well.
At a post-match press conference, he said: “The short ball has been a problem for you since the beginning of this World Cup…”
Shreyas, however, cut his question and asked: “When you say it’s a problem for me, what do you mean?” Meanwhile, the journalist also clarified that it was not a problem but he had faced trouble as well. Iyer, however, continued to disagree with that and retorted:
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“Troubled me? Have you seen how many pull shots I’ve scored, especially that have gone for four? If you’re trying to hit a ball, you’re bound to get out anyway, irrespective of if it’s a short ball, if it’s overpitched. If I get bowled two or three times, you all would say, ‘he can’t play an in-swinging ball, he can’t play a cut if the ball is seaming’.“We as players, we are bound to get out on any sort of deliveries. You guys have created that mahaul [atmosphere] outside that ‘he can’t play a short ball’, and I feel that people are picking that up every now and then and it plays on your [the media’s] mind regularly, and you keep working on that,” he added.
The batter has been dismissed by the short ball many times across different formats of the game. However, against Sri Lanka on Thursday, he looked comfortable as well. Shreyas Iyer also added that coming from Mumbai and playing many games at the Wankhede Stadium, where the ball bounces a fair bit, he knows how to tackle the short ball as well.
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“Coming from Mumbai, especially from Wankhede where the bounce is pretty much even, here it bounces way more than any other pitches. I’ve played the majority of my games here, so I know how to tackle it. It’s just that when I go to hit some shots you are bound to get out. Sometimes it may work, sometimes it may not, and majority of the times it hasn’t worked for me, maybe that’s the reason you think it’s a problem for me, but in my mind I know there’s no problem,” Shreyas Iyer concluded.
