Who said what - top 5 expert reactions to Shreyas Iyer's blistering 50 in 1st IND vs ENG ODI 2025 ft. Ricky Ponting

India beat England by four wickets in the first ODI of the three-match series at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium in Nagpur on Thursday, February 6.

England batted first and were bowled out for a modest 248 in 47.4 overs with veteran all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja and debutant speedster Harshit Rana picking up three wickets apiece.

Middle-order batter Shreyas Iyer, who walked in at No.4, set the tone for India's run-chase with a blistering 36-ball 59. Vice-captain Shubman Gill (87) and Axar Patel (52) also made significant contributions and made sure that they did not face any hiccups.

Iyer's knock consisted of two sixes and nine boundaries and was beautiful to watch owing to the array of shots he unleashed. The Mumbai batter has been in good form recently, even scoring two tons in the Vijay Hazare Trophy.

In this listicle, we take a look at the top reactions made by experts and pundits across the world to Shreyas Iyer's knock.

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#5 Sanjay Manjrekar

Former India batter Sanjay Manjrekar mentioned how pleased he was to see Iyer do well against England's high-quality bowling attack. While speaking to ESPNCricinfo, Manjrekar also spoke about Iyer's improvement in backfoot play.

The former Mumbai captain mentioned that Iyer did not try to do too much in this innings and merely reacted to everything that was sent his way by the visiting side. Manjrekar felt that Iyer did not 'put a foot wrong' during his knock.

"Not only was he effective, but he was damn good. His innings was just high quality, he did not put a foot wrong. I know it was not a big hundred, but it has to be his best one-day innings that I have seen," Manjrekar said.

"This was just Shreyas Iyer, reacting to high-quality bowling. He seems to have worked out a beautiful backfoot game. He's always been a backfoot player but tended to open up, which he is not doing anymore. You saw all the shots possible and there was a lot of orthodoxy as well," Manjrekar added.

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#4 Aakash Chopra

Former India opener Aakash Chopra took to X to write how flabbergasted he felt after it was revealed that Shreyas Iyer was not going to play in the starting XI in this game had Virat Kohli not been injured in training.

Chopra waxed lyrical about the fact that Iyer had scored 530 runs batting at number four for India in the 2023 ODI World Cup and yet was being considered surplus to requirements in the XI. He felt that a big can of worms opened up for India after Iyer's top knock.

"Trying to wrap my head around the revelation that Iyer wasn’t likely to play if Kohli was fit. He’s the first Indian to score 500+ runs batting at 4 in a World Cup. 2023. How could you bench him?? And if he wasn’t going to play, where was Kohli supposed to bat? At 4? Surely, Gill wasn’t getting pushed to 4,” Chopra wrote on X.

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#3 Parthiv Patel

Former India wicketkeeper-batter Parthiv Patel, while speaking to the official broadcaster Star Sports, observed that he found it strange to see Iyer not being a part of the Indian XI had Virat Kohli been fit.

Patel also said that he would want to know what head coach Gautam Gambhir and skipper Rohit Sharma's thought process since they clearly want to go ahead with Yashasvi Jaiswal at the top of the order. This would leave no room for Iyer in the batting order if Kohli is available.

"Interestingly, in the last 10 ODIs for India, Iyer's average is 60, and so does Shubman Gill. That is the reason why we all thought that Iyer would be 100% certainty. That is why you should just see Gautam Gambir and Rohit Sharma thinking what kind of combination India should go with in the next game because it looks like India want to go with Jaiswal and Rohit Sharma as openers and not Iyer in the middle order. So that would be a very happy headache to have,” Patel said.

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#2 Zaheer Khan

Former India seamer Zaheer Khan, widely known to be among the best in the business, especially in his prime, heaped a lot of praise on Iyer while speaking to Cricbuzz at the end of the game.

The speedster lauded the partnership that Iyer garnered with Shubman Gill and mentioned that he found the former's counter-attacking innings to be brilliant to watch. Zaheer also felt that Iyer's knock set the tone for India's successful run-chase.

"You talk about everything in that knock. The counterattack were just a brilliant inning to watch. At that stage in the game, when the ball is hard, you have already lost two wickets, someone to walk in like that and with such confidence, and taking the attack to the opposition is something which worked really well," said Zaheer.

"Really set the tone for that run-chase because we've seen later on how the pitch was turning, how it became a little tricky towards the end. By then, all the work was done. So Shubman and Shreyas's partnership and Shreyas has been that key component in that partnership," he added.

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#1 Ricky Ponting

Australia legend Ricky Ponting, who will now closely work with Iyer at the Punjab Kings in the IPL as their head coach, revealed that he was surprised the batter was in and out of the India side over the last two years.

Ponting mentioned that he felt Iyer adapted well in the 2023 ODI World Cup when asked to anchor, rotate the strike, and yet go for expansive shots, and that this should have cemented his berth in the side.

"I've been a little bit surprised that he's been out of India's side in the last couple of years. He had a terrific World Cup back in India (2023) where he played beautifully in the middle-order and I felt then that he'd almost cemented that spot and made that his own," Ponting said in the ICC Review.

"Then he had those couple of injuries, obviously injured his back and went out of the side, but his domestic season this year has been brilliant. It sort of coincided with what he's done since around (IPL) auction time going forward in domestic cricket, he has been pretty much outstanding," he added.