Kolkata Knight Riders appointed new signing Shreyas Iyer as their new captain ahead of the Indian Premier League 2022 season on Wednesday. The Indian middle-order batter was bought for a whopping Rs 12.25 crore by the franchise during IPL 2022 auction last Saturday.
KKR, who made their second purchase of the day in the 27-year-old Mumbai cricketer, were involved in a long bidding war with new franchise Lucknow Super Giants.
A perennial performer in the IPL, Shreyas Iyer proved he is a big player from the word go. Winning the Emerging Player of the year in his rookie season with 439 runs for then Delhi Daredevils, who bought the uncapped player for a record Rs 2.6 crore at the auction.
The troubled franchise's faith in the young man's ability only grew as they made him the captain in 2018 while asking misfiring and aging Gautam Gambhir to step down after six games into the season.,
The rechristened Delhi Capitals'fortune under the new captain, and more importantly under the new ownership, only got better as the next season he led the side to the playoffs for the first time in seven years.
The team only improved further in the subsequent season; finishing runners-up in 2020. As far his personal stats were concerned, Iyer amassed 463 and 519 runs in the 2019 and 2020 seasons respectively.
A shoulder injury in 2021 forced him to miss the first half of the season and had to let go of his captaincy to teammate Rishabh Pant. Shreyas played 8 games in phase 2 of the season in the Middle East, scoring 175 runs at 35 on average.
With the limitations of just four players, DC opted for Pant over Iyer in the retention list and the latter went into the auction list.
Shreyas' IPL record: M 87 | R 2375 | HS 96 | Ave. 31.66 | SR 123.95 | 16x50s | 6s - 88 | Ct - 34
Shreyas' T20I record (since Jan 2021): M 8 | R 151 | HS 67 | Ave. 30.20 | SR 136.03 | 1x50s | 6s - 2
