Shreyas Iyer needed only 29 deliveries on Friday night to remind everyone why bowlers across the IPL have started reviewing their plans. His unbeaten 50 set up Punjab Kings’ chase of 210 against Chennai Super Kings, a target that looked heavy until he walked in and made it feel almost routine. The victory keeps PBKS in the top half of the table and stretches Iyer’s impressive run in the format.
Key numbers first, because they tell most of the story. Since the start of IPL 2024, Iyer has scored 1368 T20 runs at 45.60, striking at 169.51. That rate is a huge jump from the 130-odd he managed across his first 199 games. In the same period he has also captained Kolkata Knight Riders to an IPL title, guided Mumbai to the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and taken Punjab to last year’s final. Not bad going for someone who, in Saba Karim’s words, “doesn’t get the credit he deserves”.
Karim was on television duty and did not hold back. “Today was one such example where he showed why he’s so different from the other batters we’ve seen so far,” he said. “Even in the T20 format, he looks so flawless, [and] he has so much of time. I think he’s arguably the No. 1 batter against spin bowling – [I am] talking about white-ball cricket, including one-day and T20.”
Ambati Rayudu, sitting alongside, chipped in: “He has really improved his short-ball batting, and he has been amazing. The way he controlled the innings, that was a typical No. 4 innings today. And [it was] a captain’s innings as well. He paced it beautifully; it didn’t even feel like he was batting at that strike rate until he got out.”
Both former players lingered on technique, probably because it has so clearly shifted. Karim pointed to the trigger movement – that little shuffle just before release – as the main tweak. “He gets into such strong positions before he faces a delivery… Then the front leg opens up quite easily, and then he goes bang,” Karim said. It sounds simple enough, though most batters will tell you it takes months to groove.
Rayudu noticed another subtle change: “He changed his back lift also a little bit. His bat is coming from third slip or gully sort of area, where he can really play the short ball well. And he’s in complete control of that. And also one really good thing about him is even though he goes back, his head is nicely in position. He’s always like [in] a boxer’s position, where you’re ready to punch or ready to weave.”
If the technique is sharper, the mindset looks calmer. Iyer waited on the slower balls, picked the gaps square on the leg side – a zone he once ignored – and left the heavy lifting against pace to the pitch itself. A couple of short-arm pulls over midwicket, one crisp loft down the ground and the required rate never spiked again.
There is still room for balance. The sample size since 2024 is 43 T20s, and it will be tested when Punjab leave the truer surfaces of north India. But the shape of his game feels durable. Timing rather than slogging, manoeuvring the spinners, keeping the ball on the carpet until it has to go aerial – those habits travel well.
Punjab’s next stop is Kolkata on Monday, a meeting with Iyer’s old franchise KKR. Another chance, then, to see whether this version of Shreyas Iyer – the one Karim calls “very difficult to contain” – can stay a step ahead of the video analysts. For now the numbers, and that unhurried half-century, suggest he can.
