TNCA XI were solid at the end of the first day against Mumbai in the Buchi Babu invitational red-ball tournament on Tuesday, August 27 having scored 294 runs in a day. However, it was Mumbai's Shreyas Iyer, who stole the limelight with his Sunil Narine-esque bowling action in the final over of the day before the stumps.
Iyer and Suryakumar Yadav are part of the Sarfaraz Khan-led Mumbai squad in the Buchi Babu tournament. Iyer, who led the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to their third IPL win, bowled while imitating his teammate Narine's action by keeping the ball behind the back during the run-up and then have a high load-up before bringing the ball from over his head. Iyer, who has bowled a couple of times at the highest level, is probably looking to add bowling to his armoury given he has to earn his place back in Test matches for India.
Watch the video here:
In the new era under head coach Gautam Gambhir, the likes of Rinku Singh and Suryakumar Yadav also bowled in the third T20I against Sri Lanka and that was probably the first glimpse into the future given the lack of batters who can bowl in the Indian line up.
However, there's still a long way to go for Mumbai innings to start given how brilliantly the TNCA batters played on the first day at the Sri Rama Krishna College Ground in Coimbatore. Pradosh Paul, Baba Indrajith and Boopathi Vaishna Kumar smashed the fifties to lift TNCA XI to 294/5 at the stumps on the opening day.
Not just Iyer, India's T20 captain Suryakumar Yadav is also looking to earn a recall into the Test team, having played just one red-ball match for the country. Surya and Iyer both will also feature in Duleep Trophy set to kick off on September 5.
