|| India Correspondent ||
One of the promising middle-order batsmen of Team India as well as the captain of Delhi Capitals - Shreyas Iyer has been pushed down the order in the ongoing T20I series against England. While in the first match he starred with the bat and scored 67 runs while batting at number five, he batted in that position for the second game too.
However, he came to bat at number six in the third and fourth T20I respectively. Meanwhile, Iyer usually bats at number three in the cash-rich Indian Premier League (IPL) and for him, this has become a sort of demotion as well. And, former India cricketer Aakash Chopra has said that with the presence of Rishabh Pant, Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav at the top, Iyer doesn't have a choice either.
"He does not have any other option. As they say, if you are pushed into the water, you don’t have any other option but to swim as the other option is to drown. So he has to bat at whatever position given to him," Chopra said to ESPNCricinfo. "He was batting at No.5 there, now he is batting at No.6. No.6 is not the right spot for him, he has batted well, you need to pat his back but he is not a long-term option at the position you are making him bat."
"Shreyas Iyer is making the best use of the opportunity given to him but it is not the best number for him and it is slightly a problem of their own making because there are so many top-order batsmen that even Kohli is not getting to bat at his preferred batting slot," Chopra concluded.
However, both India and England stand at 2-2 with the final match taking place in Ahmedabad on March 20.
