The reason behind Kolkata Knight Riders’ winning form since the restart is their 26-year-old batsman Venkatesh Iyer who has left fans & experts mighty impressed with his blistering knock of 41 runs against Royal Challengers Bangalore on his IPL debut, following it up with 53 of 30 deliveries in KKR’s dominant victory against the Mumbai Indians. Here are five things that you didn’t know about this new star on the horizon, Venkatesh Iyer.
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Born into a Tamil-speaking family based out of Indore, Venkatesh was always a bright student. The 26-year-old completed his schooling at the St. Paul Higher Secondary school and then went on to complete his Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from DAVV University located in Indore. Soon after, he cleared his CA intermediate exams but had to drop out before he gave his final exam and enrolled himself for an MBA at the Institute of Management Studies. In one of his interviews with ESPN Cricinfo, he said, “I decided to give up my CA and pursue an MBA in finance. Honestly, I didn’t have to put in a lot of effort to manage both. I’m not bragging, I’ve always been a bright student”
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Like we mentioned above, Venkatesh dropped out before he gave his CA final exam because he came to the conclusion that his future lies in the sport counting the runs he scores rather than being behind an office desk doing other, more dull number-crunching. So in the year 2016, Venkatesh Iyer set aside his aspiration to become a Chartered Accountant and entered the world of Cricket for good…and boy are we glad!
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At the age of 23, a very young Venkatesh Iyer was handed a job in one of the “big four” companies in the accounting field – Deloitte. However, because he wanted to pursue a serious career as a professional cricketer, he turned that job offer down and soon made his Ranji Trophy debut for Madhya Pradesh and since then, has come a long way.
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Coming from a South Indian family this one should be a no-brainer. When it comes to his interests apart from studies and cricket, Venky is a huge fan of Indian movie star – “Superstar” Rajnikanth. In one of his recent interviews, he said, “I am a Thalaivar (Rajnikanth) devotee. I can watch his movies N number of times. He’s a legend.”
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Venkatesh’s stats show us that he is a heavy hitter in the twenty-over format of the sport. The man proved this to the world with his back-to-back performances against two star-studded sides, Bangalore and Mumbai in the IPL. With that, he took his overall T20 tally to a total of 765 runs at a batting average of 38+ and a very healthy strike rate of a whopping 138.33.
[Featured Image Credit: Kolkata Knight Riders]
Shashank Iyer