Iyer blasts 82 and bristles at short-ball question

Mumbai: Shreyas Iyer's troubles against the short ball have been well-documented. Two days ahead of India's clash against Sri Lanka the support staff devoted more time to his skills against bouncers. On Thursday, the right-hander blasted his way to a 56-ball 82 -- essaying a range of strokes, including a few authoritative pulls -- and then bristled when he was asked about his weakness against the short ball.       

“See, any batter can get out to any type of delivery," Iyer retorted. " If I get out to full balls for 2-3 times then you will say I have issues against full balls. I play my shots, I play the pull. Coming from Mumbai, especially from Wankhede, where the bounce is pretty much even and it bounces way more than on any other pitches. So, I've played a majority of my games here, so I know how to tackle it. It's just that when I go to hit some shots, you are bound to get out. Sometimes it may work, sometimes it may not. And the majority of the time, it hasn't worked for me, maybe that's the reason you think it's a problem for me. But in my mind, I know there's no problem," Shreyas said after India's 302-run win over Sri Lanka here on Thursday.

Iyer’s 82 comes on the back of an underwhelming sequence of scores 0, 25 n.o., 53 n.o., 19, 33 and 4. The right-hander desperately needed an innings of substance, and he managed to that by building upon the good work done by Virat Kohli and Shubman Gill.

"It was playing on my mind right from the start, because I was getting tremendous starts in the first few games," he noted. "I wasn't able to capitalise on what I was getting into. But today, I just told myself that if it's there in my area, I'm just going to go take the bull by the horns. And yeah, fortunately, it worked for me and I hope that it keeps on working for me in the future as well, because the team is in a great space at the moment."