Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) skipper. Shreyas Iyer was once a strong candidate, ahead of Rishabh Pant and Hardik Pandya, for the captaincy of the Indian national cricket team, and even his preparation process began during the tenure of the MSK Prasad-led selection committee.
Recently, former India chief selector Prasad revealed that they had started training Iyer as a captain, unlike Hardik Pandya or Ravindra Jadeja, and that they had found a potential successor to Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma in the KKR captaincy. However, after his BCCI tenure ended, things changed.
Prasad said Iyer’s captaincy career was systematic, handing him the leadership of India A in numerous series, winning eight out of 10 series as captain as part of his development as a leader. He mentioned that the Mumbai batsman has shown great results as a leader and that is why Iyer is given priority over Rishabh Pant as the next captaincy candidate.
Shreyas Iyer was prepared as captain: MSK Prasad
He stressed that Iyer has a better chance of succeeding as a captain in international cricket if given the opportunity and this is also evident in KKR’s campaign in the ongoing IPL 2024. However, this season he is finding it difficult to compete to get the bat going.
MSK Prasad was quoted by Rev Sports as saying: “Shreyas Iyer was prepared for it (as captain), unlike Hardik Pandya or Ravindra Jadeja. He went through a system. If you look back at the stats, for the last two years when we were at the top, Shreyas Iyer was the leader of the team (India A). I think out of the 10 series that India A played, we won 8.
In most of these series, Shreyas led the team. He traveled everywhere as captain. He was prepared for this special place. We felt that after Virat, after Rohit Sharma, they needed someone to lead the team and that’s when we started thinking about Shreyas Iyer or Rishabh Pant. But even before Pant was Iyer as captain.”
MSK Prasad praises KKR’s influence on Shreyas Iyer’s development as captain
Meanwhile, Prasad further highlighted Iyer’s leadership journey and said that his development process got a real bang with his stint as captain of Delhi Capitals (DC) under the leadership of Ricky Ponting. Despite Iyer’s departure from Delhi Capitals (DC), former India chief selector Rishabh praised Pant’s commendable performance as his replacement.
The former India wicketkeeper highlighted Iyer’s subsequent move to Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in 2022 where he was given the captaincy responsibility, which contributed to his development as a leader. Stressing on the importance of strong team management at the start of a player’s captaincy career, Prasad said that Iyer benefits immensely from the strong support at KKR.
Prasad said that Iyer is young and KRR will invest in him, which is why he expects the Indian star to develop into a wonderful captain in the next two-three years. Notably, Iyer has been notable as KKR captain in the ongoing IPL 2024, where the franchise currently sits second in the standings with 14 points from 10 games so far.