Former England captain Kevin Pietersen tore into India batter Shreyas Iyer after his dismissal in the ongoing second Test in Visakhapatnam. Iyer was dismissed for 27 runs off 59 balls on Day 1, failing to convert yet another start in the longest format of late. He tried to cut a delivery off spinner Tom Hartley, but could only get an under edge to wicketkeeper Ben Foakes. Pietersen was a bit baffled with the way Iyer approached his innings, labelling his intent in Vizag as “sloppy”. 

“You got to really grab the game by the scruff of its neck and say I am not letting go here. I am afraid to say with Shreyas it all seems a bit too sloppy. Sloppy is the word. Today’s innings didn’t impress me at all. Because I want people in my dressing room that are more hungry than that,” Pietersen told the broadcasters.

Pietersen was also left frustrated over the fact that Iyer sometimes shuffled towards the leg-side, slamming the batter for not showing any intent to trouble the spinners.

“If you really want to make a go and put pressure on the bowler, this (gestures the leg-side shuffling movement) doesn’t put the pressure on the bowler. It does nothing to the bowler. You got to show more intent,” he added.

“On this wicket, why are you doing that? That’s my question: what’s the point in doing that? What you are doing is you are messing yourself up, losing where your stumps are as a batter . I am more comfortable if you are coming towards the bowler, this here does nothing for me,” he further explained.

Since the start of the South Africa tour last month, Iyer has managed scores of 31, 6, 0, 4, 35, 13 amd 27.

Pietersen feels once the likes of Virat Kohli and KL Rahul are back, Iyer might rue these missed opportunities to cement his place in the team.

“Listen, when Kohli comes back and other guys come back [KL Rahul and Ravindra Jadeja] and these are the days these boys are going to look back and go, ‘oh why did I not get a hundred? I had the opportunity to get the hundred’. And when you are sloppy like that, getting out doesn’t impress me at all,” he concluded.