Shreyas Iyer, who has fallen out of favor with the Indian Test team and is also out of central contract, finally scored his first first-class hundred after three years. The right-handed batsman raised his pitch during the Ranji Trophy second round match between Mumbai and Maharashtra on Saturday.

This will be a very important century for KKR captain Shreyas, who earlier this year led his team to the title in IPL 2024. It could really give him the much-needed boost in his batting. Coming at a time when IPL retentions are just around the corner, he could give a sliver of hope to his franchise that he will be back in the races.

IPL 2024 champions KKR could face a difficult dilemma regarding their retentions but they are likely to retain captain Shreyas Iyer and Sunil Narine, who was the most valuable player (MVP). They can also stick with Andre Russell or Phil Salt, along with Rinku Singh, his pocket dynamite, and Venkatesh Iyer.

Harshit Rana could be retained as a non-international player as he did not feature in the T20I series against Bangladesh. KKR can also use the Right to Match (RTM) card for Mitchell Starc, who had a slow start but performed brilliantly in the playoffs, and Varun Chakravarthy, whose IPL performances earned him a return to the T20I team.

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In the Ranji Trophy match against Maharashtra, Shreyas came out to bat at number 5, following the dismissal of captain Ajinkya Rahane. He achieved his century off just 131 balls. Batting alongside young opener Ayush Mhatre, the pair put together a strong 200-run stand and took Mumbai past the 400-mark. Shreyas was eventually dismissed for 142 off 190 balls, hitting 12 fours and 4 sixes.

Of late, Shreyas Iyer has been registering a poor run of scores. In the Duleep Trophy, Shreyas managed only 154 runs in six innings, with just two fifties and two ducks. In the Iranian Cup match against Mumbai, Shreyas scored 57 and 8 in two innings. The batsman then recorded another duck in the first round of the Ranji Trophy against Baroda.

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The last First Class century arrived in November 2021

This has been a long drought for Iyer, who has not featured in India’s Test setup since India’s home Test series against England earlier this year. The last FC hundred, aged 29, arrived in Indian colors in November 2021 against New Zealand in Kanpur.

He has also scored 6000 First Class runs during this 142-run knock against Maharashtra. However, he needs to give his best in every match to be in the eyes of the selectors as players like Sarfaraz Khan, KL Rahul and Dhruv Jurel are still above them in the pecking order.

Not long ago, Shreyas Iyer was one of India’s standout players in the 2023 World Cup, scoring 530 runs, including two centuries and three fifties in the tournament.

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