Shreyas Iyer had a problem he could not quite put his finger on during India’s Asian Games campaign. He felt he was not getting enough force into his shots and his bat swing did not feel as clean as it had before.
So, after returning from Japan, Iyer turned to someone he has known and worked with for years. Former India batting coach Abhishek Nayar went to Iyer’s home, where the two spent close to two hours talking and working on his batting.
The result was immediate. Iyer smashed an unbeaten 102 off 43 balls, with 10 fours and six sixes, to help India beat the West Indies by eight wickets in the first T20I in Lucknow on Tuesday. It was his first T20I hundred after 67 matches.
Nayar and Iyer went back to the basics. They worked on his grip, his first movement and how he could approach different bowlers. More importantly, Iyer wanted to get back the feeling that he could hit the ball with freedom.
“One of the things he was feeling at the end of the Asian Games was something to do with his technique, where he felt he wouldn’t generate as much force while hitting and just the thought process of not being able to clear the boundary,” Nayar told PTI.
“We did a bit of work on his grip and his movements that he speaks about getting flow and momentum into his batting. And then obviously a bit of tactical nuances as to how he can overcome certain bowlers and stuff.”
Iyer himself admitted that the conversation helped. “I had a brief interaction with Abhishek Nayar in that period where we were talking about cricket. I think that conversation with him helped me a lot in the performance against West Indies,” he said in a video shared by the BCCI.
For Iyer, getting his movement right before the ball was delivered was one of the biggest takeaways.
“The key that I observed in my batting was setting myself before the delivery of the ball, and that worked perfectly. So, creating that momentum and rhythm was essential at the start of the innings, and it worked out pretty well,” he said.
There was no quick fix involved. Nayar said they had to practise the changes rather than simply talk about them.
“You can’t talk and get this right. You obviously have to demo it. So, we did that when we met, just so that he understands the feeling of doing it because you can’t make technical changes without actually practising it,” he said.
Iyer is not the first Indian batter to turn to Nayar when something in his batting needed attention.
Nayar has worked closely with Rohit Sharma over the years and was also part of the work that helped KL Rahul make changes to his batting. His association with Dinesh Karthik and Rinku Singh has also been well documented. For Nayar, the relationship with players has often gone beyond a conventional coach-batter arrangement.
With Iyer, the problem was never about whether he had the ability to hit the ball. Nayar wanted him to feel that he could do it again.
“It’s not that he doesn’t have the ability. For a cricketer, the important thing is feeling before the ball is bowled that he can tonk it out of the park, and then, whether or not it happens is a completely different story,” Nayar said.
Nayar said Iyer had been particularly unhappy with the force he was generating during the Asian Games.
“A lot of what happened in the Asian Games for him, where he just felt like he couldn’t generate the kind of force he wanted while he was trying to hit the ball, and he felt his bat-swing wasn’t as clean as it has been in the past,” he said.
A few days later, Iyer walked out in Lucknow and played the kind of innings he had been looking for.
Nayar, though, does not want him to start chasing another hundred. Iyer will travel to Ranchi for the second T20I, and the message from his former coach is simple: stick to what worked.
“He is going to go to Ranchi from Lucknow, which may or may not be a very different pitch. I’m just happy that things turned out the way it did because an international hundred is always special.
“You just don’t want to follow that up by saying, I want to score another. You want to follow that up by saying, I want to try and focus on the same process and hopefully the results deliver,” Nayar added.
– Ends
