Shreyas Iyer: The Ideal white-ball captain after Sharma?

The Indian Men's Team is currently touring Bangladesh. With the ODI series going to Bangladesh by a 2-1 margin, India will look to draw level in the red-ball series. Captain Rohit Sharma is unlikely to lead the side owing to a thumb injury, leaving KL Rahul to take charge.

Since Virat Kohli's unceremonious captaincy exit, India has tried 5 white-ball captains. Despite a change in captaincy and team building, team India failed to reach the finals of the T20 World Cup in 2022. Hence, over the past few weeks, the team management has been pondering upon a dual-captaincy system for the white and red-ball teams.

Shreyas Iyer is in contention to be appointed the white-ball captain. The 28-year-old has the stats, skills, and experience required to lead the Indian side.

Iyer's Incredible Stats

Shreyas Iyer has some amazing numbers under his belt. Debuting in 2017, Iyer has played 35 ODI innings - amassing a total of 1537 runs at a healthy average of 48. Since January 2022, Iyer has racked up six half-centuries and a century in the 12 ODI innings he has played.

80, 54, 63, 44, 50, 113*, 28*, 80, 49, 24, 82, 3 is the sequence of runs scored by Iyer in these 12 ODI innings.

Shreyas is the highest ODI run-getter of the year among all Full Member players. He has also become the fastest Indian batsman to reach 1500 ODI runs.

In T20 international cricket, Iyer has over 1000 runs at a strike rate of over 135. He has immense experience in this format. Iyer leads the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) franchise in the Indian Premier League. He has IPL experience of over 100 matches and has close to 2800 runs to his name. He is known to be a potent hitter in this format.

Ideal No. 4 Batter

Iyer has been a regular feature in the Indian limited-overs side for a long time now, batting at number 4 in most of these matches. Iyer has shown the capability to control the flow of the game. He can anchor the innings when required, and can also act as the enforcer if the situation demands.

Iyer is known far and wide as one of the best spin-bashers going around. He has tremendous numbers against slow bowling, thanks to his near-perfect footwork. This makes him the perfect batter in the middle overs when spinners look to restrict run flow. He has one of the best strike rates against spin in world cricket at the moment.

Captaincy experience

Shreyas Iyer has some considerable captaincy experience. He was handed the captaincy of the Delhi Capitals (DC) franchise in 2018 after Gautam Gambhir stepped down. He became the third youngest captain to lead an IPL franchise. Under his leadership, Delhi reached the playoffs the very next season and qualified for the finals in IPL 2020. He is currently the captain of the Kolkata Knight Riders. Apart from his IPL captaincy stints, Iyer was also announced as Mumbai captain in the 2018 Ranji Trophy season.

He is widely seen as a cool head who makes intelligent bowling changes. As a part of the captaincy group of the Indian Men's Team, he has vice-captained the national side a number of times but is yet to play as captain.

With batting numbers, age, and form on his side, Shreyas Iyer has indeed staked a claim for the captaincy role after Rohit Sharma's tenure. He has the experience and capability to lead this young Indian side to new heights.