As India defeated England on the first of the 3 match ODI series by 4 wickets, where Shreyas Iyer played a crucial role while chasing.
Shubman Gill was the Player of the Match for his brilliant 87 runs knock. Iyer came to bat when India lost 2 back to back wickets at the score of 19. He showed his destructiveness from the beginning as he hit 2 back to back sixes against Jofra Archer. At the end, he scored 59 runs in 36 balls in which 9 fours and 2 sixes were included.
In the post match interview, Shreyas Iyer revealed that he was supposed to be benched on the match-day but due to the injury of Virat Kohli he got the chance to play. He said,
“I wasn't supposed to play the first game. As we all know, Virat unfortunately got injured and then I got the opportunity. But I had kept myself prepared. I knew that, you know, at any point in time, I could get a chance to play. And the same thing happened to me last year during the Asia Cup. I got injured, and someone else came, and he scored a century.”
After hearing this, former Indian cricketer and current commentator Akash Chopra took a dig at sidelining Iyer on the Playing 11 despite scoring brilliantly in the 2023 ODI World Cup, where Iyer finished second in the list of most runs from India. He said,
“Trying to wrap my head around the revelation that Iyer wasn’t likely to play if Kohli was fit. He’s the first Indian to score 500+ runs batting at 4 in a World Cup. 2023. How could you bench him?? And if he wasn’t going to play, where was Kohli supposed to bat? At 4? Surely, Gill wasn’t getting pushed to 4.”
Trying to wrap my head around the revelation that Iyer wasn’t likely to play if Kohli was fit.
— Aakash Chopra (@cricketaakash) February 6, 2025
He’s the first Indian to score 500+ runs batting at 4 in a World Cup. 2023. How could you bench him??
And if he wasn’t going to play, where was Kohli supposed to bat? At 4? Surely,…
Also Parthiv Patel revealed that India is going to have Rohit-Jaiswal as their opening line-up which might make exclusion for Shreyas Iyer in the Playing 11. He said,
“Interestingly, in the last 10 ODIs for India, Iyer's average is 60, and so does Shubman Gill. That is the reason why we all thought that Iyer would be 100% certain. That is why you should just see Gautam Gambir and Rohit Sharma thinking what kind of combination India should go with in the next game because it looks like India want to go with Jaiswal and Rohit Sharma as openers and not Iyer in the middle order. So that would be a very happy headache to have.”