Shreyas Iyer will captain Kolkata Knight Riders during IPL 2022.
Kolkata Knight Riders on Wednesday appointed Shreyas Iyer as their new captain ahead of the 2022 Indian Premier League season. The Indian middle order batsman was bought by the franchise for Rs 12.25 crore during this period. IPL 2022 auction last Saturday.
KKR, who made his second purchase of the day in the 27-year-old Mumbai cricketer, was involved in protracted bidding with new franchise Lucknow Super Giants.
Shreyas Iyer, a perennial performer in the IPL, has proved that he is already a big player. Won the Emerging Player of the Year award in his rookie season with 439 runs for Delhi Daredevils, who bought the uncapped player for a record Rs 2.6 crore in the auction.
The troubled franchise’s faith in the youngster’s potential only grew when they named him captain in 2018 and asked Gautam Gambhir to step down after six matches in the season.
The Delhi Capitals’ fortunes under the new captain, and more importantly under new ownership, only improved the following season as they led the team to the playoffs for the first time in seven years.
The team improved further in subsequent seasons; Runner-up in 2020. As far as his personal stats are concerned, Iyer scored 463 and 519 runs in the 2019 and 2020 seasons respectively.
A shoulder injury forced him to miss the first half of the season in 2021 and teammate Rishabh Pant had to step down from his captaincy. Shreyas played 8 matches in the second leg of the season in the Middle East, scoring 175 runs at an average of 35.
With boundaries of just four players, DC picked Iyer over Pant in the retention list and later moved to the auction list.
Shreyas IPL record: M 87 | R 2375 | HS 96 | Avenue 31.66 | SR 123.95 | 16x50s | 6s – 88 | CT – 34
Shreyas’ T20I record (since January 2021): M 8 | R 151 | HS 67 | Avenue 30.20 | SR 136.03 | 1x50s | 6s – 2
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