"Has to decide which are the formats he is going to try and excel in," Sanjay Manjrekar says about Shreyas Iyer

Former Indian player Sanjay Manjrekar has asked Shreyas Iyer to work on his defensive skills and prioritize the formats after he was excluded from the Indian squad for the rest of the England Test series. However, after an impressive start to his Test career with a debut century, Iyer has struggled for form recently in the longer format. Iyer has not scored a fifty in his last 13 Test innings, managing only 104 runs at an average of 26 in the first two Tests of the ongoing series as well.

Speaking to ESPNcricinfo, Manjrekar said, “Iyer has to decide which are the formats he is going to try and excel in. If Tests continue to be his priority then he has got to work on his defensive game whether it’s pace and bounce or spin. Develop a game where he is confident in defense and then when he takes the aggressive route it’s an extension of the defensive play where he is trying to dominate and not escape pressure by playing a cocounter-attackingame.”

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Manjrekar also said that KL Rahul would replace a batter when he returns to the squad but wondered if the host could be better served looking at other wicket-keeping options outside KS Bharat as well. Notably, Rahul missed the second Test with a quadriceps injury after scoring an 86-run knock in the first innings of the opening Test. On the other hand, KS Bharat has been in poor form with the bat, averaging only 23 in the four innings so far in the series.

“Rahul definitely comes in for a batter. Have no idea how the team management and the selectors are thinking about the keeper. Before Rishabh Pant comes and takes his rightful place in the Test squad, would like to have a look at some of the other options India have. If Mohammed Siraj wasn’t available as a second seamer, then it would have been easier for India to play four spinners and go the English way,” he shared.

But with Siraj available, and with the reverse swinging creating opportunities for wickets for the seamers, and with the way England have played the finger spinners, India might stick to two seam bowlers and a finger spinner making way. Which means Axar Patel as I don’t see Kuldeep Yadav being left out after his impact in the last Test and him being the more difficult bowler to play unorthodox shots like reverse sweeps,” Sanjay Manjrekar concluded.