Iyer scored 56 off 67, playing the perfect foil to Virat Kohli’s century, as India chased down 242 with more than seven overs to spare on Sunday in Dubai. The victory set the stage for the Rohit Sharma-captained team to qualify for the semi-finals of the multi-nation tournament.
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“I love to take on the bowlers when we are under pressure. And that is my mindset. If we take charge, if we gain the momentum towards us, then it is easy to steady the ship,” Iyer said in the post-match press conference.
“And from there on, the rest of the batsmen, when they come in, it becomes easy for them.” He expected India to take way less than the 42.3 overs that the side consumed for the six-wicket victory.
“I think we could have won a bit earlier, could have been a convincing win based on how the wicket was playing. It was initially coming on pretty well with the new ball and after that it was difficult to score runs when the ball got a bit old,” he said.
“But if we would have played more aggressively we would have won a bit earlier I felt,” he added.
Iyer was pleased with the knock as he hailed Pakistan as a competitive team and also admitted that there were several external pressures involved too.
“I haven’t played that many matches in Pakistan, so I don’t know exactly how it would have felt. But it’s a neutral venue and it’s a challenge for both the teams. But any victory against Pakistan is sweet because they are always competitive,” Iyer told reporters.
“It’s a challenge and there’s a lot of pressure externally as well. It was a lot of fun. It was my third game in Pakistan,” he added but did not elaborate what exactly he meant by external pressure.
Iyer has played 67 ODIs for India, scoring 2673 runs at an average of 47.74, striking at 101.90, with the help of 21 half-centuries and five tons.
