Kolkata Knight Riders opening batter Venkatesh Iyer grabbed eyeballs with his fine knocks against Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians in the ongoing UAE leg of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021. Iyer remained unbeaten on 41 vs RCB and brought up his maiden IPL half-century against defending champions Mumbai Indians. Impressed with the left-hander’s batting prowess, former India wicketkeeper-batsman Parthiv Patel said Iyer’s flair reminds him of Yuvraj Singh.

“There is a lot of Yuvraj Singh in his (Venkatesh Iyer) batting. He has a bit of flow into him. I mean, sure, you don’t compare him to Yuvraj Singh but here you talk about the bat flow, the shots, the drive… standing upright. The backfoot drive which he played I thought was the shot of the day,” Parthiv said on the pre-match show for the official broadcasters Star Sports.

On Sunday, Iyer scored 18 runs against Chennai Super Kings (CSK) as KKR suffered their first defeat in the UAE leg of IPL 2021.

Iyer’s contribution at the top of the order has given the likes of Eoin Morgan, Andre Russell and Dinesh Karthik to come in and play big shots from the word go.

Despite going down against CSK in a last-ball thriller on Sunday, KKR are still fourth on the IPL 2021 points table.

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The Kolkata-based franchise will be up against Rishabh Pant’s Delhi Capitals in Sharjah on Tuesday.

While KKR will look to get back to winning ways, Delhi Capitals will be aiming to continue their unbeaten run in the UAE.