Venkatesh Iyer off late may not be in the best of form but definitely his previous performances and domestic records and his 2021 IPL season he will be a key player for Kolkata Knight Riders this year with lot of their key players missing out if they have any chance of making the top 4. He started his career making his t20 debut for Railways in the year 2015 followed by his list a debut for Saurashtra cricket team.
Later in 2018-19 after a gap of few years to complete his degree he finally made his First class debut for Madhya Pradesh where he scored 113 runs at the Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy at a blistering strike rate of 146 at an average of 37 and 254 runs in 6 games at an average of 42 and strike rate of 91 at the Vijay Hazare trophy he became a prominent member of the team and established himself as an ideal no.6. Things peaked even more for him in 2021 where he top scored for Madhya Pradesh at the 2021 Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy and scored 379 runs in the Vijay Hazare trophy at an average of 63 and strike rate of 133 and also made a record of the first player to have a score of 150 batting at no.6 or below in the tournament he also started being handy with his medium pacers taking 9 wickets.
Seeing the all round ability and the value he was brought by Kolkata Knight Riders at the 2021 auction for just a base price of 20 lakhs. In the 2nd half of the 2021 IPL season he finally got his opportunity and was given a role completely different from his domestic cricket to bat at the top of the order and much to the surprise the move payed off and he ruled that year with 4 fifties and 370 runs at a strike rate of 128 with 14 sixes to his name. His elegant and upright technique makes him very good at caressing the ball through the off side and he was very effective in terms of gap finding makes him a very tuff player to bowl to especially in the first 6 also he is very good against spin when it comes to slog sweeping them and also plays the ball late very well also is very handy as that extra bowling option for the side and he was used brilliantly by the Knight Riders and turned out to be in the list of top players to watch out for and also lead him to get his international cap.
But unfortunately since then his form hasn’t been as pleasing as before in 2022 he scored only 182 runs at an average of 18 and his strike rate too went down drastically from 128 to 105. Men in purple will be hoping he comes out good this year and he will be a key player for them if they have any chance of reaching the finish line this season.
