On the day Gautam Gambhir announced his resignation as Delhi Daredevils captain, he did so sitting next to coach Ricky Ponting and CEO Hemant Dua. Only when Gambhir said he had endorsed Shreyas Iyer as captain as his last call of duty did you realise that Iyer had quietly slipped into the press conference room. Dua called him up to the dais, and Iyer spoke the routine stuff about being thankful to the team management and owners, and to Gambhir.
Sharing the space with Gambhir and Ponting, two guys known for speaking a million words a minute and imposing themselves on any situation, Iyer was a quiet counterpoint. On the field in his first match as captain, though, Iyer hogged the limelight. He scored the highest score for man captaining his first match in the IPL, he became only the third Indian batsman to hit 10 or more sixes in an IPL innings, and ended up with the Man-of-the-Match award, only the second man to do so on captaincy debut in the IPL.
As Iyer revealed later, he always wanted to impose. The first call was to get the better of the wristspinners and Sunil Narine. Iyer said he wanted to be a little watchful against Narine, but he was clear in his mind he was not going to let the other two Indian spinners call the shots. He was 7 off 9 when Kuldeep was called back, and he welcomed the left-arm wristspinner with a slog-swept six. Two overs later, Chawla came back for another spell, and his first ball was sent into the second tier right behind him.
"Playing Kuldeep Yadav and Piyush Chawla wasn't that difficult for me because I have played them in domestic circuit as well," Iyer said matter-of-factly. "But Sunil Narine I had prepared for. Majority of his deliveries nowadays is offspin. I was prepared for it. I wouldn't say I picked him properly but I did execute [against] him the way I wanted to. Yeah, he is that kind of bowler who could change the game. Back-to-back wickets could have put us in trouble."
When asked if attacking the wristspinner is the way to go, Iyer said he was waiting to do exactly that in this match. "Depends, batsman to batsman," Iyer said. "If he feels he can back his instinct and can go after the bowler, and if he feels he can easily clear the boundary... I was feeling that at that time. I waited for them to come on to bowl. Because the way I started was really slow. I just waited for them, and took them on."
All told, Iyer took 29 off the 14 balls of spin dished up to him. The knockout blow, though, was reserved for the last over, bowled by fresh Under-19 graduate Shivam Mavi, who has impressed observers with his pace and inswing. Here, though, Mavi began the last over around the wicket, and Iyer immediately knew he was going to try yorkers, which also meant lower margins of error.
"It [that last over] was really important, especially on this [batting-friendly] wicket," Iyer said. "I hadn't played him before. So it was important. I knew he was going to try something. He was going to try yorkers. I was ready for the half-volleys. And hit straight. Luckily I could execute properly. I was timing the ball really well, so you know the last over was really important in terms of setting up the total."
You would have expected Iyer to have had a tough call to make even before going out to the toss for the first time. He had to take a call on Gambhir's place in the side. Luckily, he said, the call was made by Gambhir himself, which opened up a place for Colin Munro, who provided them with just the start they needed.
Daredevils now have two wins, which barely lifts them from the bottom of the table. Iyer knows there is a lot of work to do.
"It is a really satisfying win," he said. "Saying this, we need to continue the momentum and not get complacent at any point of time. We will obviously cherish this victory but looking forward we need to follow the process we have been following for the last few days. Practice has been amazing."
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