CHENNAI: BEING an Indian cricket team captain is not an easy job. When the highs come, praises ring like it is the most important position in the sport and when the lows hit, it hammers them. Shreyas Iyer is learning it the hard way after failing to win a single match across seven T20Is as skipper in England and Ireland.
In their first two series after the T20 World Cup triumph, the Men in Blue fell flat in all departments with both Iyer, who replaced Suryakumar Yadav, and head coach Gautam Gambhir coming under the scanner. Iyer was drafted into the team as a like-for-like replacement for Yadav as captain. While he scored his share of runs in the second half of the tour, his captaincy was not up to the mark.
Ask him if the expectations weighed down on his shoulders, Iyer said it is not that hard. "I feel it's a privilege for me to take over the captaincy. Every individual dreams of captaining for the Indian team and taking on from high. Definitely, I love pressure. So, for me to thrive under pressure, to learn from these moments is definitely going to make me better going forward. And that's my mindset right now. Not thinking much about how people are going to think about this particular series because good and bad is part and parcel of this game," the skipper told reporters after the series loss.
For him, the biggest learning from the series is to remain positive and nurture the players around him, making this team his own. India, in the next 24 months, will be touring a lot overseas, especially with the next edition of the T20 World Cup set to happen in Australia in 2028. "Going forward, I need to be extremely positive enough in how I'm going to basically nurture everyone who is playing around me and especially in overseas conditions. We know we are going to play in Australia and many other cities before that. So, the best camaraderie to fit in these conditions is our goal and going forward, that is going to be our plan," said Iyer.
The other aspect about the series loss is that England replaced India as the No 1 ranked team in the format. And furthermore, if India do not remain the top-ranked team from Asia, they might miss out on qualifying for the LA 2028 Olympics. The Mumbai batter, while acknowledging that the loss hurt, said that the sooner they learn, it is better. "It definitely hurts. But I feel that it's a great learning for me as a captain and also for other players who have played here for the first time. It's all about how you turn up for the tournament. You can't just have that mindset that you will come to England and you will win the series. You need to work hard, you need to be focused which we were as a team. Everything that's happening around right now is a preparation for the World Cup. So, the earlier and the quicker we learn, it's beneficial for the team environment and also for the players who are coming in here."
While Iyer will link up with the ODI team as Shubman Gill's deputy and the No 4 batter, his next challenge as skipper will be later this month when the team tours Zimbabwe for a T20I series.
