WATCH: Shreyas Iyer Smashes an MS Dhoni Style Helicopter Shot in Syed Mustaq Ali Trophy

Mumbai batsman Shreyas Iyer helped his team post a mammoth 243 in their 20 overs against Punjab in the Syed Mustaq Ali Trophy.

During his innings of 80 off 40 balls, Iyer smashed four sixes and seven boundaries.

One of the four sixes was hit in MS Dhoni’s trademark helicopter shot. A few video clips of that shot came out on social media and immediately went viral.

Iyer’s swashbuckling innings, added to Suryakumar Yadav’s 80 off 35 balls and an opening blitz from Prithvi Shaw took their team’s total to 243.

Punjab’s innings started with a much needed impetus by openers Shubman Gill and Abhishek Sharma. While Abhishek missed his half century by three runs, Gill went on to smash 78 off 38 balls. Gurkeerat Singh Mann, who came in next scored 40 off 21, but the target in the end was too big and Punjab eventually fell 22 runs short of the target.

Iyer’s innings will be another statement made in his to quest to become a permanent member of the Indian squad.

Iyer has so far played nine One Day Internationals and 11 T20 Internationals for India. He has four half centuries in the nine ODIs with an aggregate of 346 runs, while 212 runs in the T20Is.

India has had a problem in having a No. 4 batsman consistently for a while now, and Shreyas Iyer certainly seems to have the capabilities.

In a recent interview with PTI, team India’s Chief selector MSK Prasad said that Iyer could be the solution for the No. 4 slot in limited overs formats.

“If you recall, we had inducted Shreyas Iyer (when Virat Kohli was rested) 18 months back into the ODI squad and he has done reasonably well. Unfortunately we couldn’t continue with him. Having said that, he has evolved as a player now and he can be the solution to our number 4 slot in both ODIs and T20s,” Prasad told PTI.