The 2022 edition of the Indian Premier League is set to start in two days’ time. And in the first match of this year’s tournament, defending champions Chennai Super Kings will take on two-time winners Kolkata Knight Riders at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Saturday (March 26). KKR finished runners-up in last year’s competition, and this time they will be hoping to get one step ahead and end the eight-year long drought of the third IPL title.
In the mega auctions that took place in Bengaluru last month, the franchise made some interesting picks for the upcoming season, and one of the highlights was the marquee signing of Shreyas Iyer. The 27-year-old Mumbaikar was snapped up by Shah Rukh Khan’s co-owned side for a big price of Rs 12.25 crore, and he was later handed the captaincy as well.
And going into the tournament, the former Delhi Capitals skipper, who missed the first half of the tournament last year due to an injury, is in the form of his life at the moment. He scored three back-to-back unbeaten fifties against Sri Lanka in the three-match T20I series last month and was one of the best performers in the two-match Test series that followed. He scored fifties in both the innings of the second Test played in Bengaluru, which was a day-night affair.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, former Indian batter and now cricket expert Aakash Chopra says that the new KKR skipper, who is one of the most in-form batters at the moment, will be amongst the leading run-getters in the tournament.
“Who will be the highest run-scorer this year? They have Venkatesh Iyer, Shreyas Iyer, Nitish Rana, Sam Billings, and Andre Russell. It looks like a good batting lineup. Among them, I feel Shreyas Iyer will score the most runs. Shreyas Iyer will make so many runs this year that he will be in the Orange Cap race. “
He also predicted that mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy, who was one of the four retained, would be the most successful bowler for the KKR side.
“Who is going to take the most wickets? This is not a team where one bowler picks up a lot of wickets; they work together. They have two mystery spinners: Sunil Narine and Varun Chakravarthy, Pat Cummins, Umesh Yadav, and Shivam Mavi. So the wickets will be split. I am saying the most wickets will be in Varun Chakravarthy’s account,” he added.
Shreyas Iyer, who has now represented India in all three formats of the game, has played 87 IPL matches since he made his debut for the Delhi side in 2015 and has scored 1916 runs at an average of 31.66. He is the only captain to lead Delhi in the finals of the IPL.
