In 2018, when Gautam Gambhir stepped down as captain of Delhi Capitals midway during an IPL season due to his poor batting form, Shreyas Iyer took over the reins. He has looked back at that initial phase of captaincy when he was guided by Sourav Ganguly, team’s mentor, and Ricky Ponting, the head coach, in a rather delightful way: “I was like being in a Hamleys store (a toy shop), and these two big boys (Ganguly and Ponting) coming in and handling everything. It was amazing how they handled me. ?Before games, Dada (Ganguly) would call me to his room, to talk about what team we have to play; he was tactically very good and he has done the studies about all the teams,” Iyer once told Cricbuzz. “On the other side, Ponting is a very fun personality to be with.”
Fast track to 2025, Iyer has come a long way, won an IPL title as KKR’s captain, and has now joined hands again with Ponting at Punjab Kings.
His biggest test as captain came on Tuesday evening against KKR when he was faced with the task of trying to defend the lowest total ever defended in IPL’s history. KKR were cruising at 62 for 2, chasing the 112-run target when things began to happen.
First Chahal trapped Rahane lbw, and KKR’s captain would rue the decision not to review that as replays showed that he might have failed to connect with his sweep shot but the ball was missing the off stump. 62 for 3 turned to 72 for 4 at Angkrish Raghuvanshi’s fall in 10th over to Yuzvendra Chahal and 74 for 5 when Venkatesh Iyer was dismissed in the 11th over.
“Two wickets in two overs gave us that kind of momentum and the two batters came in and took the momentum towards them. When we saw Yuzi come in and turn the ball, our hopes and expectations were high,” Iyer said at the end of the game.
Iyer shared how he was confident about defending and what he told Chahal. “I saw the ball turn a bit, asked Yuzi to control his breathing a bit. We needed to be attacking, and the right players were in the right places … It is hard to express in words. I was just backing my instincts.”
Even though they had only made 111, Iyer said that their batting downfall had actually given him hope that they could do the same to KKR. “I personally felt, when I went out to bat, I faced two balls – one stayed low and one hit the bottom of the bat, people were finding it difficult to sweep. There was variable bounce in the wicket, we got a decent total to be honest, looking at the win of 16 runs. The bounce was not consistent. We had this at the back of our mind, and we asked the bowlers to keep this in mind. And they executed it.”
Story continues below this ad
Rinku Singh of Kolkata Knight Riders walks back after being stumped out on a delivery from Punjab Kings’ Yuzvendra Chahal in an IPL 2025 game. (Photo: Sportzpics for IPL)
In the 12th over, Chahal removed Rinku Singh with a beauty of a drifting legbreak and took out Ramandeep Singh to leave KKR flailing at 76 for 7, a position they never recovered from. The victory over Kolkata was Punjab’s fourth in six games, and they are now at fourth on the points table with a net run rate of 0.17. And it all started with Shreyas asking Chahal to take a deep breath.