Michael Vaughan backs discarded Indian T20I star come back after LSG vs PBKS IPL 2025 match

Former England captain Michael Vaughan believes Shreyas Iyer's recent exploits in white-ball cricket justify a potential recall to Team India's T20I setup soon. The Punjab Kings (PBKS) skipper has been in sublime form of late as he kick-started his 2025 Indian Premier League (IPL) campaign with a couple of match-winning knocks.

Iyer came into the IPL season on the back of a prolific set of batting displays in the 2025 Champions Trophy. In IPL 2025, the right-handed batter scored an unbeaten 97 against the Gujarat Titans, followed by an unbeaten 52 in the resounding eight-wicket win over the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG). Iyer has been expectantly ruthless against spin, and has seemingly buried the ghosts of his short-ball woes to be in the Orange Cap race already.

Michael Vaughan has opined that Iyer deserves to be considered by the selectors for Team India's upcoming T20I assignments.

"Surely, he does (make it to India's T20 XI team) after this. I think people like SKY and Shreyas Iyer, they are very much the kind of modern players in everything that they do. They are very cool, funky, in the way they go about their business," Vaughan said on Cricbuzz.

"They have got a swagger about them like they get their chest out, and they look at the opponent, and thinking, 'Who are you?' It's just the way they play, it's great. A little bit of arrogance, nothing wrong with that when you are playing at the highest level. He's clearly seeing the ball rather large. I think some of the balls tonight that he sent into the boundary, they were not terrible balls," he added.

Apart from his batting, Iyer is also being hailed for his leadership in IPL 2025. After leading the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to their third title last year, the batter was released before getting picked by PBKS in the mega auction. He has ushered the franchise into a new era with successive wins.

Team India have a plethora of T20 matches lined up after the England tour midway through the year. A tour of Bangladesh and Australia, coupled with the T20 Asia Cup, all form the build-up to the 2026 T20 World Cup on home soil. With Virat Kohli's T20I retirement, there is a vacancy at No. 3, a position favorable for Iyer. However, he faces stiff competition with Tilak Verma for the same.

Shreyas Iyer last played a T20I in December 2023 against Australia

Despite making his T20I debut as early as 2017, Shreyas Iyer has only been able to muster 47 appearances and has not been considered for the T20 World Cups over the years. He got a chance to impress at No. 3 in a string of games in 2022, but it did not amount to much.

His last appearance in the shortest format for India came during the latter stages of a five-match home T20I series against Australia. He was the vice-captain of the side and scored a match-winning fifty in the final contest in Bengaluru to seal a 4-1 series win in 2023.