Full Name

Venkatesh Rajasekaran Iyer

Born

December 25, 1994, Indore, Madhya Pradesh

Age

30y 196d

Also Known As

Venkatesh Iyer

Batting Style

Left hand Bat

Bowling Style

Right arm Medium

Playing Role

Allrounder

A loose-limbed and tall pace-bowling allrounder, Venkatesh Iyer was briefly a much sought-after player in white-ball cricket for India. He had shone with both and ball as India searched for Hardik Pandya's back-up in the lead-up to the 2021 and 2022 T20 World Cups.

Cricket was not always his first career choice. A "bright student," in his own words, Venkatesh was on his way to becoming a Chartered Accountant before he switched to finish an MBA in finance while also playing side by side, which landed him a job with the high-profile accounting firm Deloitte in 2018 when he decided to focus solely on cricket.

Venkatesh made his white-ball debuts for Madhya Pradesh in 2015 and a Ranji Trophy debut followed in 2018. But he came into his own around the 2020-21 season. He hammered unbeaten scores of 87 and 88 to finish the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy with an average of 75.66 and a strike rate of nearly 150. In the Vijay Hazare Trophy that followed, Venkatesh clobbered a 146-ball 198 against a Punjab side that featured Sandeep Sharma, Siddarth Kaul, Harpreet Brar and Mayank Markande. And with those credentials, he got his maiden IPL deal, with KKR, in 2021, for a base price of Rs 20 lakh.

His 370 runs at the top of the order and pace-bowling skill soon sent him to the T20 World Cup in the UAE as a net bowler with the India squad. Soon after that World Cup, he got his T20I cap, an ODI debut in South Africa in January 2022, and was among the four players retained by KKR for 2022, which shot up his salary by 40 times to Rs 8 crore.

His fledgling India career wasn't as dreamy though. He had to adapt to batting as a finisher, especially in T20Is, and he made a mark with a few useful knocks at home in early 2022. Venkatesh's stocks then fell sharply with an ankle injury when he fell down the hotel stairs during the 2022-23 domestic season. In 2023, he had to restart only as a batter and it was with the help of the Impact Player rule during the IPL that without bowling a single ball, he scripted another memorable season with KKR, which included his maiden T20 century. He returned to full fitness, including for bowling in the Ranji Trophy, in the 2023-24 season in which he scored nearly 550 runs in the Ranji Trophy and picked wickets consistently across formats. He registered four half-centuries while striking at over 158 in KKR's victorious IPL campaign in 2024 but hardly got to bowl because of the plethora of bowling options in the team.

Vishal Dikshit

Venkatesh Iyer Career Stats

Batting & Fielding

FormatMatInnsNORunsHSAveBFSR100s50s4s6sCtSt
ODIs220242212.004060.00000100
T20Is97313335*33.2582162.190015540
FC28463165817438.55240968.8221216140110
List A535010156819839.201551101.094511750230
T20s13511933303810435.322159140.71117283124520

Bowling

FormatMatInnsBallsRunsWktsBBIBBMAveEconSR4w5w10w
ODIs2130280---5.60-000
T20Is94557552/232/2315.008.1811.0000
FC28301212575173/283/3333.822.8471.2000
List A533710831020273/553/5537.775.6540.1000
T20s135679611234496/206/2025.187.7019.6010

Venkatesh Iyer T20 Stats

Batting & Fielding

TournamentTeamsMatInnsNORunsHSAveBFSR100s50s4s6sCtSt
IPLKKR62567146810429.951069137.3211213665220

Bowling

TournamentTeamsMatInnsBallsRunsWktsBBIBBMAveEconSR4w5w10w
IPLKKR629811433 2/29 2/2947.6610.5927.0000
Venkatesh Rajasekaran Iyer

Explore Statsguru Analysis

ODI
T20I

Recent Matches of Venkatesh Iyer

MatchBatDateGroundFormat
KKR vs RR--04-May-2025Eden GardensT20
KKR vs DC729-Apr-2025DelhiT20
KKR vs PBKS--26-Apr-2025Eden GardensT20
KKR vs GT1421-Apr-2025Eden GardensT20
KKR vs PBKS715-Apr-2025New ChandigarhT20

Videos of Venkatesh Iyer

Photos of Venkatesh Iyer

Rinku Singh, Venkatesh Iyer and Manish Pandey tag along for the IPL restart
Venkatesh Iyer has had a difficult season
Venkatesh Iyer and KKR had a tough night
Venkatesh Iyer and Ajinkya Rahane added 71 off 40 for the third wicket
Venkatesh Iyer thumps one down the ground
Venkatesh Iyer crashed 60 off 29 balls