"Don't Think He Captained Poorly": Shreyas Iyer Gets Backing Despite Poor Start As India's T20I Skipper
Shreyas Iyer has captained India in six T20Is but has failed to win any. The side lost five games while one ended in a no result.
- Shreyas Iyer is yet to win a game as India's T20I captain after leading in six matches
- India lost 2-0 to Ireland and 4-0 to England, while one match against the Three Lions was washed out
- "I don't think he captained poorly. No one suddenly becomes a bad captain overnight," said Wasim Jaffer
The pressure is truly on Shreyas Iyer as he continues to yearn for his first win as India's T20I captain despite leading the side in seven matches. It all started with India suffering a 2-0 whitewash at the hands of Ireland. The problems kept increasing for the Iyer-led side afterwards. India lost the five-match T20I series to England by a 4-0 margin. After the first game got washed out, the Three Lions simply outplayed the visitors in the next four contests to register their first-ever bilateral T20I series win over India.
Former India batter Wasim Jaffer backed Iyer despite his poor start as T20I captain. He said that Iyer did nothing wrong with his leadership and held the team responsible for the defeat against England.
"I don't think he captained poorly. No one suddenly becomes a bad captain overnight. We've been praising him for a long time, and the results are there for everyone to see, especially the way he led his IPL team. This is his first opportunity to captain India in international cricket, so he's in new territory. I think he'll handle it. He has the confidence and self-belief to do so. He scored runs as well. Collectively, as a team, we played poorly. But I think Shreyas Iyer is not a bad choice going forward. In my opinion, he did a decent job," Jaffer said on his YouTube channel.
The former international further said that India played the series with the aim of testing their combinations, keeping the next T20 World Cup in mind.
"I feel that this series was, in a way, treated as a trial. We gave opportunities to some new players, appointed a new captain, and were without Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya. We also didn't include Kuldeep Yadav in this series. So, I think it seemed that the selectors and the coaches, especially Gautam Gambhir, wanted to try a few players and see whom they could trust going into the World Cup. It felt like the idea was to put these players into this series and see how they performed," said Jaffer.
"Winning didn't seem to be the primary focus. Of course, you always want to win, but the bigger objective appeared to be to assess how these players performed in overseas conditions. That would probably give them an answer as to whether these players are long-term prospects or whether they aren't the right fit. That's the impression I got from these two series. It seemed like they wanted to try out a few players and figure out which ones they could back going forward and which ones they couldn't," he added.
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