IPL 2022 Auction: 3 times Shreyas Iyer proved he was captaincy material

Shreyas Iyer has often been seen as a player of exceptional character and exceeding performances. Hailing from Mumbai, Iyer has experience playing with one of the most successful and dominant Ranji outfits.

In his only second Ranji season with Mumbai, Iyer showed the maturity of an experienced campaigner with his counter-attacking 117 in the 2016 Ranji final.

Iyer is an ideal blend of an attacking top-order player with a flair for gorgeousness and elegance in his batting. His style, consistency, and maturity makes him a successful player and a good leader as well.

He joined the Delhi Daredevils (now Delhi Capitals) back in 2015 and led the franchise as one of the most dominant IPL teams in recent years. Let's look at three instances where Iyer lived up to his captaincy tag.

#3 65* vs. MI, IPL Final 2020: the last man standing

Shreyas Iyer successfully led Delhi to their first-ever IPL final in twelve years in 2020. This was Iyer's second season as Delhi's full-time captain. His team selection, bowling changes and improvised batting with the likes of Shikhar Dhawan, Rishabh Pant and Marcus Stoinis helped Delhi reach the finals.

Delhi faced MI, the IPL's most successful franchise for the final frontier, against whom they lost the qualifier-1 earlier that week. Strong start, failing middle order, and in dire need of partners, Iyer played a mature innings of 65* in 50 balls. When Pant started attacking, Iyer took the secondary role of stabilizing the other side. After Pant failed, Iyer switched gears and took Delhi to a respectable total of 156/7.

Although 156 was never enough against MI in the finals, Iyer's resistance was a true testament to his character and abilities.

#2 IPL 2019 Season: Delhi reaches Playoffs

Iyer made his IPL captaincy debut in 2019 with the rebranded Delhi Capitals team. In an explosive lineup of Prithvi Shaw, Shikhar Dhawan and Colin Ingram, Shreyas Iyer almost looks like an anomaly of classical batting. But he did not think about that.

Shreyas Iyer and MS Dhoni ahead of Qualifier-2 during 2019 IPL

He often played a secondary role in supporting the more explosive group, who were busy smashing the opposition. And yet he finished with the third-most number of runs for Delhi, with three fifties to his name. His team selection and execution of field plans helped Delhi reach the playoffs for the first time in seven years.

#1 93* vs. KKR: Shreyas Iyer's dream captaincy debut

Shreyas Iyer's captaincy debut came at the age of 23. Given the big task of leading Delhi mid-way through the IPL, his first match came against the Kolkata Knight Riders. Iyer stood tall to face that challenge.

Delhi appointed Iyer as their captain after Gambhir resigned mid-season, having won just once in six matches. Iyer seemed unmoved by the pressure and played the innings of a true captain.

He embraced the leadership role with open arms and smashed the highest score on his captaincy debut of 93* in just 40 balls to revive Delhi's fortunes.

Delhi finished last in the points table in 2018 with just five wins. But four of those wins came under Iyer's captaincy after his mid-season glory.