After Rohit Sharma and KL Rahul, Abhishek Nayar helps Shreyas Iyer find his rhythm

Shreyas Iyer had a problem during India’s Asian Games campaign that he couldn’t quite figure out. He felt he wasn’t putting enough power into his shots and his bat swing didn’t feel as clean as before.

So after returning from Japan, Iyer turned to someone he knows and has worked with for years. Former India batsman Abhishek Nayar went to Iyer’s house where they spent nearly two hours talking and working on his bat.

The result was immediate. Iyer smashed an unbeaten 102 off 43 ballswith 10 fours and six sixes to help India beat West Indies by eight wickets in the first T20I in Lucknow on Tuesday. It was his first T20I hundred after 67 matches.

Nayar and Iyer went back to basics. They worked on his grip, his first movement and how he could approach different pitchers. More importantly, Iyer wanted to regain the feeling of being able to hit the ball freely.

“One of the things he felt at the end of the Asian Games was something about his technique, where he felt he didn’t have as much power in the stroke and just the thought process of not being able to clear the boundary,” Nayar told PTI.

“We’ve worked a little bit on his grip and the movements that he uses to talk about how to get fluidity and momentum into his bat. And then of course a little bit of tactical nuance, how he can get past some pitchers and stuff.”

42-ball HUNDRED for IYER Shreyas Iyer goes all the way through long-on to bring up his maiden T20I ton! #INDvWI 1st T20I | LIVE NOW Star Sports (@StarSportsIndia) October 6, 2026

Iyer himself admitted that the interview helped. “I had a short chat with Abhishek Nayar during that period when we were talking about cricket. I think that chat with him helped me a lot in my performance against West Indies,” he said in a video shared by BCCI.

For Iyer, one of the biggest attempts at movement was just before the ball was delivered.

“The key I observed in batting was setting up before the delivery and that worked perfectly. So creating that momentum and rhythm was essential at the start of the innings and it worked quite well,” he said.

There was no quick fix. Nayar said they had to practice the changes rather than simply talk about them.

“You can’t talk and get it right. Of course you have to demonstrate it. So we did that when we met, just so he could understand the feeling of doing it, because you can’t make technical changes without actually practicing it,” he said.

Iyer is not the first Indian batsman to turn to Nayar when something in his batting required attention.

Nayar has worked closely with Rohit Sharma over the years and was also part of the work that helped KL Rahul make changes to his batting. His association with Dinesh Karthik and Rinku Singh has also been well documented. For Nayar, the relationship with the players often goes beyond the conventional coach-thumb arrangement.

With Iyer, the issue was never about whether he had the ability to hit the ball. Nayar wanted him to feel that he could do it again.

“It’s not that he doesn’t have the ability to do it. It’s important for a cricketer to feel that he can knock the ball out of the park before he bowls, and then whether that happens or not is a completely different story,” Nayar said.

Nayar said Iyer was particularly unhappy with the power he generated during the Asian Games.

“A lot of what happened to him in the Asian Games where he just felt like he couldn’t get the power he wanted when he was trying to hit the ball and he felt his swing wasn’t as clean as it was in the past,” he said.

A few days later, Iyer left for Lucknow and played the kind of innings he was looking for.

However, Nayar does not want him to start chasing another hundred. Iyer will travel to Ranchi for the second T20I and the message from his former coach is simple: stick to what worked.

“He will be going to Ranchi from Lucknow, which may or may not be a completely different ground. I’m just glad it went the way it did because an international hundred is always special.

“You don’t want to follow it up by saying, I want to score another goal. You want to follow it up by saying, I want to try and focus on the same process and hopefully the results will come,” Nayar added.

– The end