Iyer owns the 'V' and Knight Riders' attack

Two days after resigning as Delhi Daredevils captain, Gautam Gambhir was dropped from the team and he looked like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders in the dugout. Shreyas Iyer, the new captain, on the other hand, batted like the world was at his feet. He ramped the extra pace of Mitchell Johnson to the third man boundary, slog-swept Kuldeep Yadav over midwicket, hoisted Piyush Chawla into the top tear and owned the 'V'. Forty-three of his 93 runs came in the arc between long-off and long-on.

Iyer finished with a strike-rate of 232.50 and a smart strike-rate of 321.17 - ESPNcricinfo's new metric to make sense of numbers in the shortest format.

He has batted with such freedom in first-class cricket, too, as his strike-rate of 80.35 suggests. Rahul Dravid, the India A coach, rates him highly because he can even hit good balls to the boundary. His first boundary against Kolkata Knight Riders came off a blameless ball: Kuldeep tossed one up wide outside off, and Iyer stretched out, employed his reach, and slog-swept it it over midwicket. That he had a platform to launch from helped - Colin Munro and Prithvi Shaw had put on 59 for the first wicket in seven overs.

Iyer's calculated assault ensured Daredevils never cooled off. He shuffled around the crease and threw both seamers and spinners off their lines and lengths. Shivam Mavi started the last over from over the wicket and bowled a full ball outside off. Iyer ventured outside leg and drove it inside-out over extra cover for six. Mavi then shifted to around the wicket, but it made no difference. Iyer preempted the wide yorker, jumped across the stumps and smeared it over the wide long-on boundary like MS Dhoni had done on Wednesday night.

In a nutshell, Iyer carried the bottom-placed Daredevils to 219 for 4 - the biggest total of the season - which eventually proved beyond the reach of KKR.

On another night, Shaw's helicopter shot would have been the wow moment. But this was Iyer's night. When Johnson angled a short ball into Iyer's head, he arched his back, got under the ball, and ramped it to the third man fence.

"Shreyas Iyer, serious striking that!"
England wicketkeeper-batsman Jonny Bairstow, on Twitter

"Obviously a great feeling getting on the winning side. It is an amazing feeling winning my first game as a skipper."
Shreyas Iyer is on top of the world