'Authoritative' Shreyas Iyer enhances his growing reputation with a match-winning knock for the ages

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2 days ago

There's an old adage in sport: to be the champion, you have to beat the champion. PBKS did that on Sunday and it was Shreyas Iyer who made it possible against MI. read more
June 2, 2025, Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad. The Punjab Kings, champions never before, versus the Mumbai Indians, winners more often than anyone else. A game that was supposed to begin on Sunday (and finish on that day), and confirm the identity of the second finalist, has just nudged towards day two.
95 needed off 48. Two more overs of that Jasprit Bumrah-named genius to come. Memories of an incredibly insipid performance in Qualifier 1 still fresh for PBKS. Past ghosts of failing to win the games that really, really matter, still hovering and far from being vanquished.
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Oh, and there is also the small matter of MI having NEVER lost a match in the IPL after posting a 200-plus score, and of MI having lost just once after batting first in a playoff contest.
Amid this setting, Reece Topley runs in to bowl. The first ball yields a single and brings captain Shreyas Iyer on strike. At times this season, it has felt like he has the world at his feet. But tonight, this run-chase and PBKS' world is threatening to cave in and crash.
Until…Shreyas decides he has had enough. That this amazing Punjab Kings season, so often masterminded by himself, needs yet another statement . To illustrate their firepower and their strength in a moment where things, had they not gone to plan, would only have led to unimaginable regret and repentance.
And so, it happens. Three sixes come off Topley's over, and Shreyas, single-handedly, reignites a chase that was threatening to flag. The show is not done there, though. Later in the innings, once Nehal Wadhera perished and Shashank Singh was caught napping by Hardik Pandya, Shreyas was thrust as the protagonist again. And he knew exactly the ending he had written for himself and his team.
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One of the more striking features of this knock was how calm Shreyas was throughout. The run-rate zinged up, with Mumbai primed to spring their usual death-overs traps, but those facets only gave off side-actor vibes because this main character, charismatic, composed and laser-focused, was always a step ahead.
A perfect example of that was when Mumbai began bowling wide yorkers to him. Trent Boult nailed almost all of those deliveries in the 17th over, yet, Shreyas found ways to pierce the off-side ring behind point. Not once, but twice. Bumrah tried his hand too, but Shreyas was up to that task as well, making Bumrah, for the first time in a loooong time, scratch his head and try to fathom what had hit him.
And then, when Mumbai buckled under pressure , Shreyas landed the coup de grâce, sending the ball soaring to all parts, with each hit not just more impressive than the previous one, but also significantly more authoritative and telling.
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Shreyas Iyer enhances his growing reputation with match-winning knock
There is an old adage in sport – that to become the champion, you have to beat the champion. That whoever aims to scale the pinnacle - which will put them as part of folklore and history - must go through whoever has held that mantle previously.
MI, since winning the entire thing in 2020, have not been that team. But they remain the joint-winningest franchise in the IPL, and they are, in many ways, the team to avoid in playoffs. Not just because they are good at it, but also because they have been there so often , and have done it so often.
It was, thus, imperative that PBKS got past the five-time winners. It almost felt like an obligation. Almost a compulsion, and as the Eliminator tag of the encounter suggests, a necessity. Especially if PBKS wished to see their name up in lights, and if they aspired to climb the summit – something they have never done, have only ever come close to doing once, but have felt fully capable of achieving from the moment this campaign began.
From a personal standpoint, too, Shreyas needed this IPL season. He may have led the Kolkata Knight Riders with distinction to the title in 2024, but he has not played a T20I for India since December 2023, with several others seemingly pipping him to India's first-choice side, despite the retirements of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli.
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The time to unpack that, though, is not in the immediate term. That time will come. And it will come in due course because Shreyas is just too good a player to be continually ignored.
The here and now, however, is all about the Punjab Kings, and this cavalier campaign that has taken them to the cusp of history, just one hop, skip and jump away from ascending the ultimate throne. Into the date with destiny they have so deeply desired for almost two decades, and potentially, towards a tête-à-tête with the trophy they have truly, truly treasured and toiled tremendously for.
The romance of this, the sheer emotion behind this journey, of course, does not mean that PBKS will waltz to the title on Tuesday. Because…the team they are up against, know better than most, and perhaps know even better than the Kings how it feels like to come up short time and time again, and endure hurt and ridicule.
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PBKS gain neccesary momentum ahead of mega IPL final
And like PBKS, the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), through years of false dawns and floundering, would have learnt what not to do when the big occasion comes calling, as they brazenly displayed on Thursday in Qualifier 1. Not to mention that RCB have arguably been the most complete outfit in the land this season.
But if Punjab indeed go on and do what they would only have visualized in their dreamiest and dizziest of dreams, they will look back on Sunday (and Monday) as the night(s) they came of age, shedding the pretenders tag and proving that they are proper contenders. Just like Shreyas Iyer has been portraying all along, and just like he demonstrated against the Mumbai Indians.
And if there is still anyone doubting them or Shreyas, well, play that innings and that run-chase on loop, and there will soon be a realization that this Punjab Kings side – proud, pompous and packed with poise, panache and purpose, will not rock up on Tuesday just to make up the numbers.