New Punjab Kings captain Shreyas Iyer feels he didn’t get the due credit for lead KKR to the IPL 2024 title last year.
Shreyas Iyer emerged as India’s leading run-scorer in the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 campaign. The batter, who was left out of BCCI central contracts, has come back into the Indian side with style. Iyer notched up 243 runs at an average of 48.6 with 2 fifties as well as a crucial 48 in the final against New Zealand in Dubai on Sunday.
This is the second major trophy that Iyer has won in less than a year after leading Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan-owned Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to IPL 2024 title last year. However, Iyer feels that he didn’t receive the due recognition after winning the IPL title.
“Frustration toh nahi tha because I was playing IPL. The major focus was to win the IPL and thankfully I won it. I personally felt I didn’t get the recognition I wanted to after winning the IPL but at the end of the day, as long as you have self integrity and you keep doing the right things when no one is watching, that is more important and that is what I kept doing,” Iyer said in an interview to TOI.
The Mumbai batter compares getting recognition to ‘respect’ which he feels he was denied. “When I talk about recognition, it’s about getting that respect. It was about the respect for whatever efforts I put on the field. I think sometimes it gets unnoticed but extremely satisfied with the efforts I put in because they weren’t easy wickets to bat on. It wasn’t easy to take singles especially when the bowlers were bowling so tight. I just had the belief in myself that once I get two sixes here or there, I can change the momentum towards our side. Luckily I got them at crucial times,” he added.
Iyer averages an impressive 48.22 from 70 ODI matches with 2845 runs with 5 hundreds and 22 fifties. In 116 IPL matches, he has notched up 3127 runs at a strike-rate of 127.47 with 21 fifties.
He was bought for Rs 26.75 crore – the second-highest bid for a cricketer – by Preity Zinta co-owned Punjab Kings side at the IPL 2025 mega auction last year. Iyer will now lead the Punjab Kings side in the IPL 2025 season.
“I am extremely happy with my training routine. There is this guy Sagar who has been working with me on my training and he creates schedules for me based on my activities on the field. He helped me a lot in terms of changing my body, the training and understanding what I was going through. He worked with me during the IPL as well. Lot of credit goes to him also. From there on I was convinced to follow whatever he says in terms of my fitness and it worked well,” he said about his fitness.
