Venkatesh Iyer has been on the receiving end of a lot of scrutiny since he was released and brought back to the Kolkata Knight Riders for a whopping Rs 23.75 crore in the Indian Premier League auctions last year. With such a hefty price tag around his neck like an albatross, his below par start to the league this season had invited a lot of criticism with the Kolkata vice-captain scoring 6 and 3 in the matches against Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Mumbai Indians respectively.
But on Thursday, Iyer, who played a belligerent knock of 60 in just 29 balls against Sunrisers Hyderabad, was successful in shutting out the outside noise for the time being. His blistering innings consisting of 7 fours and 3 sixes was one of the main reasons Kolkata could reach 200 runs at the Eden Gardens.
In the post-match press conference, Iyer opened up about the endless talks on the price tag, saying that after the tournament starts, money does not matter and it’s all about how much impact he can make for his team.
“You tell me if the pressure has been released (smiles). I have been saying this constantly that when the IPL starts, the price tag does not matter. We have a young player like Angkrish Raghuvanshi in the team who is playing so well. Money does not define how you play for your team. I know this question comes around a lot. Obviously high payment and expectations. But I am a player of this team and want to contribute to its win. There will be situations where my work will be to play just a few overs. Even if I play those overs and not score much, I would have still worked it out for my team. That does not mean that I am the highest paid player and I need to score runs in every match. It’s about the impact.”
“I won’t lie but yes, there’s some pressure. But the pressure is for the fact on how I am winning the match for the team and what impact I can create. I don’t feel pressurized because of the price tag or how much runs I have to make. That’s never been the pressure on me,” Iyer added.
The team had come under scanner after their abject surrender in the match against the MI in Wankhede especially after the KKR batters failed to rein in their innings after losing quick wickets. Most of the players went out on their swords, trying to go hammer and tongs on the opposition without trying to anchor the innings. On Thursday at Eden, they didn’t make the same mistakes with Ajinkya Rahane and Raghuvanshi steadying the innings after the loss of both their openers cheaply. Iyer and Rinku would then start with a measured approach, analyzing the conditions before exploding during the late overs.
Iyer would explain how they went about it.
“See, I think the basic meaning of aggression is showing a positive intent. And we play cricket so it’s important for us to show positive but correct intent. If we are 50/6 and I still go and tonk everything, that’s positive but that’s not correct. So, if we are to call ourselves champions, if we are to call ourselves smart cricketers, it’s very important for us to read any situation and then react aggressively. See, aggression does not mean tonking every ball for a sixer. It’s about how you understand the conditions and how you are able to maximize the conditions in your favour. And that is what aggression actually is and that is what we as a team want to play,” Iyer said.
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“We don’t want to be the team that when we hit it, we score 250 and when we don’t we get out for 70. We don’t want to be that team. We want to be the team who understands the pitch and the conditions quickly and assess what is the par score on that pitch and always try to make 20 runs above par. That is what aggression for KKR means,” the 30-year-old added.
