Shreyas Santosh Iyer (born 6 December 1994) is an Indian international cricketer who plays for the India national team. Iyer captains India in T20Is and serves as the vice-captain in ODIs. A right-handed batter, he primarily plays as a top-order or middle-order batter across formats. Iyer also captains Mumbai in domestic cricket and captains the Punjab Kings in the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Iyer made his international debut in 2017 and has been a regular member of India's limited-overs teams. He achieved a notable milestone on his Test debut against New Zealand in November 2021, scoring a century in the first innings and a half-century in the second, becoming the first Indian player to record both on Test debut. Earlier in his career, he represented the India Under-19s at the 2014 Under-19 Cricket World Cup.
In major international tournaments, Iyer was part of the Indian squad that finished runners-up at the 2023 Cricket World Cup, during which he scored a century against New Zealand in the semi-final at the Wankhede. He was also a member of the teams that won the 2023 Asia Cup and the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy. For his performances, he was named ICC Men's Player of the Month in February 2022 and March 2025.
In the IPL, Iyer began his career with the then Delhi Daredevils (now Delhi Capitals) in 2015, winning the Emerging Player of the Year award in his debut season, and played for them till 2021. He later captained the Kolkata Knight Riders from 2022 to 2024, leading them to the IPL title in 2024. In 2025, he was signed by the Punjab Kings for ₹26.75 crore (US$2.8 million), briefly becoming the most expensive player in IPL auction history before the record was surpassed in the same auction. He led the team to the finals in the Indian Premier League 2025, ending as the runner-ups.
On 6 June 2026 Shreyas Iyer became India's 15th T20I captain replacing Suryakumar Yadav.
Shreyas Santosh Iyer was born on 6 December 1994 in Chembur, Bombay, India. His father, Santosh, is from Kerala, and his mother, Rohini, is a Tulu speaker from Mangalore. He was educated at Don Bosco High School, Matunga and at Ramniranjan Anandilal Podar College of Commerce and Economics, Mumbai.
Despite growing up in Maharashtra, Iyer has remained connected to his roots, he can speak his mother tongue Tamil, Marathi, and Hindi.
At the age of 18, Iyer was spotted by coach Pravin Amre at the Shivaji Park Gymkhana, who trained him in his early cricketing days. Iyer's teammates at the age group levels used to compare him to Virender Sehwag. During his graduation from Podar College, Iyer helped his college team win six trophies.
In 2014, Iyer represented the Trent Bridge Cricket Team. During a trip to the UK, he played three matches, scoring 297 runs and averaging 99 runs per game. He set a new team record with a highest score of 171.
Iyer made his List A debut for Mumbai in November 2014, playing in the 2014–15 Vijay Hazare Trophy. He scored 273 runs in that tournament at an average of 54.60. Iyer made his first-class cricket debut in December 2014 during the 2014–15 Ranji Trophy. He scored a total of 809 runs at an average of 50.56 in his debut Ranji season, including two centuries and six fifties. He was 7th highest scorer of the 2014–15 Ranji Trophy.
In the 2015–16 Ranji Trophy, Iyer scored 1,321 runs at an average of 73.39, including four centuries and seven fifties, becoming the top scorer of the Ranji season and the second player to score 1,300 runs in a single Ranji Trophy competition. In the 2016–17 Ranji Trophy, Iyer scored 725 runs at an average of 42.64, including two centuries and two fifties. He scored 202 not out off 210 balls against the visiting Australia team in a 3-Day Practice match in Mumbai, his highest first-class score.
In September 2018, Iyer was named the vice-captain of Mumbai for the 2018–19 Vijay Hazare Trophy tournament. He was the leading run-scorer for Mumbai in the tournament, with 373 runs in seven matches. In October 2018, Iyer was named the captain of India B's squad for the 2018–19 Deodhar Trophy. He was also the leading run-scorer in that tournament, with 199 runs in three matches.
In February 2019, in the opening round of the 2018–19 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy tournament, Iyer made the highest score by an Indian batsman in a T20 match, scoring 147 runs.
In March 2021, Iyer was signed by Lancashire for their 2021 season of the Royal London One-Day Cup, but, in July 2021, Iyer opted out of the tournament to recover from an injury.
In February 2024, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) mandated Iyer to participate in the 2023-24 Ranji Trophy. Iyer did not play in the quarter-final against Baroda citing back issues. Subsequently, Iyer lost his BCCI central contract. Later, Iyer appeared in the semifinal against Tamil Nadu and the final against Vidharbha, as Mumbai went on to win the Ranji Trophy.
In February 2015, Iyer was signed in the 2015 IPL players auction by the Delhi Daredevils for ₹2.6 crore (approximately $430,000). Thus Iyer became the highest-earning uncapped player in the tournament. He scored 439 runs in 14 matches, with a 33.76 average and a strike rate of 128.36, and was named the Emerging Player of 2015 IPL.
Delhi Daredevils retained Iyer in the 2018 IPL Auction. On 25 April 2018, he was announced as the new captain of Delhi Daredevils replacing Gautam Gambhir. On 27 April 2018, he became the youngest captain to lead the Delhi Daredevils team in IPL history at the age of 23 years and 142 days during the match against Kolkata Knight Riders and was also the fourth overall youngest to captain any IPL team. On his IPL captaincy debut, Shreyas Iyer smashed an unbeaten match-winning knock of 93 off 40 deliveries with 10 sixes, which was his third successive IPL fifty of the season to power DD to a heavy total of 219/5 in the first innings of the match before earning him the man of the match award. Under his captaincy, Delhi Daredevils managed to defeat KKR by 55 runs to secure only their second win of the tournament.
Iyer was retained by the Delhi Capitals in the IPL 2019 season, in which he led the team into the playoffs for the first time after seven years.