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Harbhajan Singh said Shreyas Iyer ‘changed the complexion of the game’ in the first ODI.
IND vs ENG, 1st ODI: Shreyas Iyer scored 59 off 36 balls (AP)
Shreyas Iyer starred with his 19th ODI fifty in India’s four-wicket win over England in the first one-day international at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in Nagpur on Thursday.
Iyer walked in when India were shaken twice early to slip to 19 for two chasing 249, but produced a stunning counter-attack hitting two sixes and nine fours to make 59 off 36 balls, which took the wind out of England’s sails.
After the win he revealed to the broadcasters that he had received a call from India captain Rohit Sharma about replacing Virat Kohli in the playing XI.
Former India spinner Harbhajan Singh in a recent interview called the whole incident akin to ‘divine intervention’.
“The team management has selected him in the squad but they had to decide whether they want to go with him or Yashasvi Jaiswal at the top. I think the team is currently trusting Yashasvi more. Maybe the management is looking to have a right-left combination up top. This is how the team went. But I think if the management wanted not to play Shreyas, then the only reason was to have Yashasvi Jaiswal up top,” Harbhajan Singh was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.
“Shreyas is a proven performer. He scored a lot of runs in the World Cup. When a player scores so many runs, he thinks he would get opportunities. He is the best in his eye and hence, even God felt the same. He got what no one else thought and what someone else thought for Shreyas, that didn’t happen. The player whom you were thinking about dropping, he played such an innings, he made it an one-sided game. The 50 runs he scored, changed the complexion of the game,” he added.
Iyer was one of the vital cogs in India’s run to the final of the 50-over World Cup in 2023, with the middle-order batter scoring 530 runs to emerge the seventh-highest run-getter in the global event.
In domestic cricket too, the 30-year-old has been in fine fettle this season, scoring two centuries for Mumbai in the Vijay Hazare Trophy.
(With inputs from Agencies)
