CHENNAI: Shreyas Iyer likes to start his day with music.
“It’s something that I’ve being doing over the years. Whenever I wake up, I put on some songs, generally ones with good beats. It helps me relax,” he states.
Last Saturday, after the 22-year-old woke up to an earful or two of Ed Sheeran and The Weeknd — his favourites — he decided that Australia too had to be introduced to his daily routine.
Face Shreyas’ music till Sunday they did, in the form of an unbeaten, 210-ball 202 (his first-class best). Even the top-order batsman’s nutshell of those two days came appended with an unintentional reference to music.
“It was really fun, considering the way I split my innings up. It took me time to realise that I’d gotten to a double ton. It happened so fast. I was scoring in rhythm.”
Among the ball-wielding victims of Shreyas’ onslaught, Nathan Lyon and Steve O’Keefe were the ones who suffered the most amount of statistical bruises.
While the Australian spin spearhead was carted around for 71 runs in the 80 balls he sent down to Shreyas, his tweaker apprentice leaked 73 more off 67. The two were also at the receiving end of all of Shreyas’ seven sixes and more than half of his 27 boundaries. That Lyon’s and O’Keefe’s resultant economy rates — 5.61 and 4.20 — would have felt more at home on an ODI scoreboard instead of a three-day clash didn’t come as a surprise at all.
Despite putting to sword half of Australia’s spin contingent even before the start of the real examination, Shreyas feels that scratching their names off the ‘potential threats’ list is the last recourse that India should opt for.
“Lyon’s their main spinner, and he’s taken many international wickets. I realised that while facing him. He was really quick through the air, and wasn’t giving our batsmen time to step out and play shots. He also made use of bounce to keep us on the back foot.
“Even from an overall perspective, their best squad is here. They defeated Pakistan at home, and they’ll be having a good amount of confidence. Not to mention that they too got quite a few runs on board (Australia made 469/7 in the first innings). Their bowling over these three days may not have been up to the mark, but they’re still a force to reckon with.”
rahulravi@newindianexpress.com