‘He is a bit of a panicker’ – Ian Chappell shares his thoughts on Shreyas Iyer’s batting calibre against spin

Ian Chappell. (Photo by Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

Former Australia cricketer Ian Chappell has expressed his thoughts on current India cricketer Shreyas Iyer, after his poor performance on Day 1 of the third Test of the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

Shreyas Iyer failed to express anything with the bat, coming down at no.5. He was clean bowled by Australian spinner Matthew Kuhnemann for a duck, on only the second delivery he faced in his innings. India were dismissed for a mere 109 runs in their first innings.

I haven’t seen it yet – Ian Chappell not impressed with India’s batting on Day 1

“Cheteshwar Pujara is very jumpy. I think right through the series he has been very jumpy. I keep hearing that Shreyas Iyer is a very good player of spin bowling, but I haven’t seen it yet, and I’m not convinced that he is. To me, he is a bit of a panicker,” the 79-year-old said while speaking to ESPNcricinfo.

The former top-order batter didn’t mince his words while being critical of Shreyas Iyer and his colleagues. He was of the opinion that the Indian batting line-up looked very shaky on Day 1, and they let the Australian bowlers get the better of them quite easily, also being aided by the turning Indore pitch. He compared India’s batting with Australia’s shoddy batting in both the opening Tests.

He categorically went on to comment about Shreyas Iyer. Chappell stated that he didn’t wish to go with the common notion that he had been constantly hearing about the 28-year-old that he was a great player of spin. This is because Iyer was still to give any solid proof of it to him. He had a chance on Day 1, and he failed miserably to capitalise on it.

“There are some players in the Indian side that haven’t convinced me that they’re good players of spin bowling. I thought that the Australians spooked India early on. A couple of things happened with the pitch. The Australian spinners bowled very accurately. But what we saw was Australian-type batting from the Indians.”

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