‘Changed Shreyas’ grip & backlift’: How Abhishek Nayar helped India T20I captain bounce back

Shreyas Iyer (AP Photo)

MUMBAI: Since he scored an 80 not out against England in July, India's T20I captain Shreyas Iyer had been experiencing a rare slump in white-ball cricket, where he’s usually highly consistent, having failed to cross 30 in his last 10 T20I innings.Soon after he landed back in Mumbai after leading India to the gold medal at the 2026 Asian Games in Japan, where he was out for 13 & 21 in the semi-final and final, Shreyas, surely concerned by his dip in form, sought out his old Mumbai teammate, friend and 'mentor' Abhishek Nayar, India's former assistant coach and currently the head coach of Kolkata Knight Riders, for help.The result: Iyer cracked a brilliant 43-ball 102 not out, including six sixes and 10 fours, to fashion India's eight-wicket triumph in the opening T20I against West Indies in Lucknow.

After his blazing knock, Iyer said in a video released by the BCCI on Tuesday that a conversation with Nayar had aided his performance. “I had a brief interaction with Abhishek Nayar in that period (during his time in Japan) where we were talking about cricket. I think that conversation with him helped me a lot in today’s performance. The key note which I observed in my batting today was setting myself before the delivery of the ball, and that worked perfectly.

So, to create that momentum and rhythm was essential at the start of the innings, and it worked out pretty well.

”TOI has learnt that Nayar went to meet Shreyas at his home in Worli in Mumbai, and the two, who go back a long way, had a long chat about what could be wrong with his batting. Nayar revealed that for a brief while, Iyer had begun doubting his ability to smash those trademark massive sixes that normally sail into the crowd.The productive two-hour chat session took place at Iyer's Worli home, during which Nayar ironed out a few technical things in Iyer's game. "I went to meet him and he was feeling that he wasn't getting the power to hit sixes. He wasn't feeling that he could hit a sixer. So, we spoke about some technical things and made some changes in batting. We spent two hours on his grip and backlift. I can't tell you what exactly, but I changed his grip and backlift a little bit.

Basically, I made a slight alteration to his grip, the initial movement and his backlift," Nayar told TOI.While churning out one stroke after another, Iyer looked back to his confident self on Monday. "There was no issue with his confidence or batting. He was missing the 'feel' to hit sixes and that was it," Nayar asserted.It helped that over the years, Nayar has followed Iyer's batting closely. "I compared his old videos and tried to set him up to get to what is normally very comfortable with him. I did a little bit and set him up. It's such an old relationship. It's such an understanding, that it doesn't take that much time," the former India and Mumbai allrounder said.Since resuming his role as T20I captain this year, Iyer has scored 511 runs in 17 innings at an average of 39.30 and a strike rate above 149, including one century and two fifties.