Just earlier than the beginning of the second Test in Cape Town, Shreyas Iyer straightaway walked exterior the Newlands Stadium for throwdowns after arriving for an non-obligatory coaching session. The two throwdown consultants Nuwan Senaviratne — the southpaw side-armer — and Raghavendra, together with batting coach Vikram Rathour, have been letting it rip from 18 yards. The concept was to get the flashy Mumbaikar match-ready for brief balls which has been his drawback throughout codecs from the time he made his debut. Few minutes into the session, he obtained one throwdown from 18 yards, brief and imply into the physique that kicked up from size. It was greater than 150 clicks because of the shorter distance traversed. The bat did not come down in time and he was hit on the fleshy space between higher and decrease stomach.

He threw his bat and was actually writhing in ache. He crouched for a while attempting to breathe because the physio and different help workers joined to verify on him.

The challenge was each psychological in addition to technical as Iyer did not look snug in any respect however with no worthy center order reserve batter within the ranks, the Kolkata Knight Riders skipper had no competitors.

He has up to now performed six knocks in SENA nations and his sequence of scores have been 15 and 19 (Birmingham), 31 and 6 (Centurion), 0 and 4 not out (Cape Town). His Test common has now dipped from a close to 50 to lower than 40.

There is little question that Iyer is a grasp participant towards spinners and won’t have issues tackling James Anderson or Chris Woakes to deliveries that will not rise above knee roll.

But on Australian tracks, come December 2024-25, if Iyer’s recreation would not endure sea change technically with correct head steadiness and could also be barely extra chest-on stance, his struggles are actually going to compound.

A barely chest-on stance and a correct again and throughout motion would give an opportunity to deal with the bumper stuff.

But at practically 30 years of age with a set muscle reminiscence, it might be tough to vary his recreation the wrong way up.

In 1982-83, Mohinder Amarnath, throughout his dream season, had a stance that was a bit chest-on and any bouncer that was bowled concentrating on his proper shoulder, he would take it on the physique and something on left shoulder could be hooked imperiously.

Easier mentioned than performed however Iyer should discover his personal means.

Iyer is a participant who primarily performs with palms with not a lot pronounced footwork. Hence on bouncy tracks, he’s mentally all the time anticipating brief ball and is perennially on again foot even to deliveries the place he wanted to be on entrance foot.

He is having chilly ft, pondering that he’ll all the time be fed with brief balls.

“My job is to give them confidence. Rohit, Kohli and KL, we all have learnt from travelling,” captain Rohit Sharma mentioned about Iyer, Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal, thought-about to be flag bearers of Indian batting, who struggled to deal with bounce.

“They will learn what to do and not to do. In India, the scenario is different. India is also very challenging. We have seen wickets like this in India too. It will be challenging going forward too.

“You need to be taught from these form of experiences. Your confidence goes up while you do properly in these situations,” Rohit said.

However, there are skeptics too. Former India batter Sanjay Manjrekar, in an interaction with ESPNcricinfo, said that he expects Gill and Jaiswal to learn by the time Australia tour comes calling but is “not so certain” about Iyer.

Recently, Iyer didn’t like when he was asked about his issues with short ball.

“What do you imply?” he had countered and also felt that it’s a perception that’s being created.

Iyer is in denial mode now and perhaps could only do course correction when he accepts that he has technical issues while facing short ball.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)