Kanpur, Nov 26 (UNI) Shreyas Iyer announced his arrival here on Friday by lighting up the Day 2 of the first Test against New Zealand at Green Park Stadium.
With a voracious appetite for runs, Iyer became the 16th Indian batsman to score a century on Test debut. He cracked 105 (171b; 13x4 2x6) and 75 of those runs came on Day 1 of the match.
Iyer's fine hundred, and his 121-run stand for the fifth wicket with bowling-allrounder Ravindra Jadeja, who cracked a fluent 50 (120b, 6x4), helped to lift India out of the woods, when they were struggling at 145 for 4.
When the umpires called for lunch, India were 339 for 8 with Ravichandran Ashwin, who has five centuries under his belt, batting on 38 off 54 balls with five hits to the fence, and tail-ender Umesh Yadav on 4.
The day began on the worst note possible for the hosts when Jadeja was cleaned up by Tim Southee on his overnight score of 50 not out.
To worsen the hosts' plight, Wriddhiman Saha (1) and Iyer lost their wickets in quick succession to Southee. Axar Patel also did not last long as he fell to Southee, who became the first visiting fast bowler to take a five-wicket haul in Kanpur since January 1980.
After watching Jadeja walk back to the pavilion, Iyer continued to motor along and punished anything loose on offer. He steered Kyle Jamieson for four behind point and in his next over the Mumbaikar executed a traditional cover drive before he sneaked one between slips and gully for boundaries.
After ambling for two runs off Jamieson, Iyer joined the elite club of Rohit Sharma and Virender Sehwag among others, to score a hundred on debut. He also became the third Indian on debut to achieve the milestone against New Zealand.
The Delhi Capitals captain also became the third oldest Indian batsman at 26 years 355 days to crack a debut Test ton.
Iyer clubbed another boundary, but just when he looked for a bigger hundred, the Mumbaikar thick-edged a Southee delivery to a diving Tom Blundell behind the stumps.
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