Shreyas Iyer took India out of trouble with his swashbuckling 92 off 98 deliveries on a turning Bengaluru pitch against Sri Lanka on Day 1 of the Second Test at M Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Rohit Sharma opted to bat first but his decision would have gone wrong if Iyer has not played a counter-attacking inning.
Shreyas came at the crease when India was tottering at 86-4 and kept one end intact as Rishabh Pant went hammer and tongs, scoring 39 off 26 balls. But after Pant's dismissal, Iyer took the charge and kept scoring at a brisk pace on a rank turner, taking India to 252 in the first innings.
Iyer's 92-run showed there were no such demons in the Bengaluru wicket, where some deliveries kept low and turned square on quite a few occasions.
As Team India moves to next-generation players, Iyer also showed that he can be India's long-term middle-order batter in Tests. After making his Test debut during the New Zealand series in November last year, Iyer has scored two fifties and one hundred in six innings on home soil. Thus literally shutting the doors for the experienced Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane, who were dropped from the Test side after failing to score big runs.