Watch- Skipper Shreyas Iyer tears into Shashank Singh, refuses to shake hands

Ahmedabad – PBKS captain Shreyas Iyer was visibly angry at batsman Shashank Singh after the latter was run out due to his casual running between the wickets. Shashank, who lit the IPL on fire last year after his explosive finishes was on the receiving end of Shreyas Iyer’s wrath due to his clumsy running, which could have potentially cost Punjab the match.

Shreyas Iyer was adjourned the man of the match after his whirlwind innings of 87 of 41 with 5 fours and 8 sixes, 4 of them coming in the penultimate over against Ashwani Kumar. With 23 needed out of 12 balls, Iyer finished the match with an over to spare, thereby making Punjab the only team to have chased down a target of over 200 against the 5 times champions Mumbai.

What did Shashank do?

In the 17th over, Shashank drove a low full toss from Trent Boult to mid-on and set out for a run which would have been easily completed, but Shashank started jogging before realizing that Hardik Pandya at mid-on had collected the ball and fired it at the bowlers end. Had he dived, he would have reached the bowler’s end but his casual running meant he was late by a few microseconds. Skipper Iyer was not happy at the experienced batsman’s poor running. Punjab’s deep batting meant that they had the luxury of losing that wicket but had they been in a more precarious position, this could have cost them the match. Iyer refused to shake hands with Shashank after the match, instead giving him an earful, filled with a few unsavory words.

What next?

Punjab will now play Bangalore tomorrow at Ahmedabad, a battle for the ages as the teams have not won a title since the inception of the IPL. A new winner will emerge tomorrow in a clash filled with high stakes. Interestingly, both the captains. Shreyas Iyer and Rajat Patidar were also the captains of Mumbai and Madhya Pradesh respectively when these two teams met in the final of the Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy back in December of last year, where Shreyas Iyer’s Mumbai pipped Madhya Pradesh to win the trophy.