Know your Cricketer: Shreyas Iyer; an Attacking Top Order batter

Shreyas Iyer is a prominent Indian cricketer who bats in the top order for the Indian cricket team across all formats. He is a skilled right-handed batsman and also has a talent for right-arm legbreak bowling. His style of batting is aggressive and attacking, making him a valuable asset to the team.

Shreyas Iyer was born on December 6th, 1994, in Chembur, Mumbai to his parents Santosh and Rohini Iyer. He started his List A career in 2014, featuring in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, where he managed to score an impressive 273 runs. Later that same year, he made his first-class debut in the Ranji Trophy, where he scored a total of 809 runs, including two centuries and six fifties.

During the 2015-16 season of the Ranji Trophy, Iyer managed to score an impressive 1321 runs. This included four centuries and seven fifties, making him the top scorer of the season. Furthermore, he became only the second player to achieve the feat of scoring more than 1300 runs in a single Ranji Trophy season. Then, in 2018, Iyer was appointed as the vice-captain for the Vijay Hazare Trophy. He led the run-scoring charts for Mumbai with 373 runs in seven matches.

Iyer has been included in Lancashire's squad for the Royal London One-Day Cup 2021 season.

He made headlines when Delhi Daredevils acquired him for ₹2.6 Cr at the IPL 2015 Auction. He performed exceptionally well by scoring 439 runs in the season and bagging the Emerging Player of the year award. He proved to be an asset for the team as he played a vital role as the captain and the backbone of the team for the next six seasons of IPL. He scored more than 400 runs in a season four times, which speaks volumes about his consistency and dedication towards the game.

In 2022, Iyer joined Kolkata Knight Riders for ₹12.25 Cr. He made his T20I debut against New Zealand in October 2017 but didn't get a chance to bat. In November 2017, he made his ODI debut against Sri Lanka, where he scored 88 runs off 70 balls. During the second ODI against West Indies in December 2019, Iyer scored the most runs (31) by a batsman in a single over. In the first ODI against New Zealand in 2020, he scored his first ODI century by hitting 103 runs off 107 balls.

Shreyas Iyer began his Test career in 2021 with a match against New Zealand. He then made waves in the 2022 bilateral T20I series against Sri Lanka, scoring a whopping 204 runs with three back-to-back unbeaten half-centuries. In doing so, he broke the record previously held by Virat Kohli for the most runs scored by an Indian batsman in a 3-match T20I bilateral series.

During an ODI match against South Africa in 2022, he achieved his second unbeaten ODI century by scoring 113 runs off 111 balls.