Shreyas Iyer

Shreyas Iyer is an attacking top-order batter capable of marrying classical shots with brute force.

He made headlines when Delhi Daredevils bought him at the 2015 IPL auction for Rs 2.6 crore (about US$416,000). It was faith he repaid with interest: he made 439 runs that season, and won the IPL Emerging Player of the Year award. Over the next six seasons, he became a mainstay of the side and its captain, making over 400 runs a season for them four times.

Iyer came up through the Under-19 ranks, hitting back-to-back fifties in the 2014 World Cup playoffs to help India finish fifth. He made his first-class debut for Mumbai the next domestic season, and after a lukewarm stint in the middle order, was promoted to opener and finished as the team's top run-getter with 809 runs at an average of over 50. He had a blow-out Ranji Trophy season the next year, with 1321 runs at 73, and made a century in the final, where Mumbai won their 41st title.

By then calls for Iyer to be fast-tracked into the India side had grown clamorous, but it took nearly another two years before he made his international debut, in the white-ball formats first. His first hundred for India came in an ODI against New Zealand in Hamilton in 2020, and he made a century and fifty on Test debut against the same side a little over a year and a half later, this time at home. In a Ranchi ODI in October 2022, he made a chase of 282 against South Africa look like a walk in a park with a well-paced unbeaten 113 that took India home with plenty of room to spare.