Mumbai, the undisputed king of Ranji Trophy, had a tough domestic season.
After bowing out of the Ranji quarter-final and with the captain Aditya Tare failing to fire with the willow, the selection committee led by Ajit Agarkar was contemplating a change in captaincy ahead of the white-ball season. The most obvious contender for the leadership role was Shreyas Iyer. However, the in-form batsman sustained a hamstring injury in the T20 series against Sri Lanka and was ruled out of the West Zone Twenty20 league.
Cut to Wednesday afternoon and Iyer — on the back of two successive valiant fifties — received a call from the Delhi Daredevils management to be told that he would be replacing Gautam Gambhir at the helm for the remainder of the Indian Premier League's eleventh edition after the latter had stepped down from the captaincy.
Those who know Iyer well aren't really surprised with his elevation to captaincy for an IPL franchise. “He is the right choice primarily because he has the leadership ability. A good leader has to have a positive approach, lead from the front and should be able to take the players along with him. May it have been for India A (India B in Deodhar Trophy) or in T20 Mumbai, Shreyas has shown all these qualities,” says Sameer Dighe, who was Mumbai's coach for the last domestic season and also mentored Iyer's T20 Mumbai franchise Bandra Blasters.
Iyer, a prodigy of Praveen Amre since his early teens, has been a consistent performer ever since he made a mark in the 2014 Under-19 World Cup. Besides being a prolific performer in the domestic circuit, he also showed he is made for greater heights by bagging the Emerging Player award in his maiden IPL outing in 2015. Despite being a tad frustrated by not getting the India call-up till 2017, he didn't let it affect his performance, instead adding additional skills to his arsenal.
Ever since having a mediocre IPL 2017 outing, primarily due to being shuffled in the batting order, Iyer, a worshipper of star striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, has not looked back. A fruitful India A season was followed by the India debut and the Worli boy impressed in his limited opportunities in India's blues. Delhi Daredevils will be hoping that he continues his form in the team's dark blue jerseys and also leads a revival that would at least stretch the Daredevils' campaign till the latter stage of the league.
