Veteran Indian spinner Yuzvendra Chahal has praised Shreyas Iyer for scoring an aggressive century in the first T20I against the West Indies as well. He stated that the Indian skipper is looking to play with the bowler’s mindset and time the ball, which has improved his batting a lot. West Indies posted a 172-run total in Lucknow on Tuesday, October 6. Shreyas scored an unbeaten 102 off 43 balls in the chase as India registered an eight-wicket win with 32 balls in hand.

During a discussion on Star Sports, Chahal said, “Definitely, attacking the mind. When Shreyas came at the start, he used to go back and play the cut. Now he comes across, and if the midwicket fielder is up, he has that option as well. If you bowl outside the off-stump, his reach is so good that he plays over cover and mid-off. So, the bowler gets slightly stuck there as to what he should do when he is not getting any help from the wicket.”

“When I bowled to him in the nets, I had to bowl wider, or else he used to easily hit me over cover for a six. One or one-and-a-half years ago, he used to hit hard, but nowadays he times the ball, and that’s the specialty because of which his batting has improved so much,” he further added.

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However, former India captain Sunil Gavaskar also shared that Shreyas Iyer was predicting what the bowler would bowl.

“In batting, especially in T20s, you challenge the bowler’s mindset a little. You also guess. When you play chess, you guess what the next move would be. So you think as a batter where the bowler would bowl. When Romario Shepherd was bowling, he was going back and very much across,” he said.

“Batters go back and across toward the off-stump, but he was going outside the off-stump because he knew Shepherd would try to bowl only outside the off-stump. That’s why he played the lofted extra cover drive and lofted off-drive. He read the bowler’s mind, and that’s why he was able to get into those positions. Brilliant batting, sensational batting,” Gavaskar concluded.