IND vs ENG: "He Needs To Work On Defensive Game If Test Is His Priority" - Sanjay Manjrekar Advices Dropped Shreyas Iyer

Former India batter Sanjay Manjrekar has said Shreyas Iyer needs to work on defensive game if Test is his priority after the middle order batter faced the axe for the remaining three Tests against England.

After back-to-back poor performances with the bat as a senior batter in an otherwise inexperienced middle order in the ongoing series vs England, Iyer was dropped from the Indian squad ahead of the third Test, starting from Thursday (February 15) in Rajkot.

Iyer, who has been struggling to score in Tests following a fine start to his long-format career, has managed just 187 runs in 12 innings at an average of 17.00, with the best score of just 35 in his last seven matches.

The 29-year-old, who takes the senior role in the middle order in the absence of Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane and KL Rahul, has often thrown his wicket away in the Tests against England.

Speaking in a video by ESPNCricinfo, Manjrekar said that Iyer first has to decide as to which formats he wants to excel in, and then if Test match is his priority, he has a lot of work to do to his defensive game.

"Iyer has to decide which are the formats he is going to try and excel in. If Tests continue to be his priority, then he has got to work on his defensive game whether it's pace and bounce or spin," said Manjrekar.

"Develop a game where he is confident in defence and then when he takes the aggressive route it is an extension of the defensive play where he is trying to dominate and not escape pressure by playing a counter-attacking game."

Meanwhile, former Australia captain Ian Chappell wrote in his column in ESPNCricinfo that the Indian selectors should stop picking Iyer in Test after he made 35, 13, 27, 29 in the opening two Tests and was guilty of not building on the starts.

"Hopefully the selectors will now stop overestimating Shreyas Iyer's batting ability and learn to value Kuldeep Yadav's wicket-taking capability more," Chappell said.

As for the playing 11 for the third Test, Manjrekar believes KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja will come in to side should they clear fitness tests, but he wants to see something new in the wicketkeeping department after KS Bharat's failure to deliver.

"Have no idea what the team management and the selectors are thinking about the keeper. Before Rishabh Pant comes and takes his rightful place in the Test squad, would like to have a look at some of the other options India have," added Manjrekar.