Shreyas Iyer was able to come to within three runs of a maiden IPL century in his first match for the Punjab Kings (PBKS) against the Gujarat Titans at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Tuesday. Iyer had two scores of 90 from previous seasons but had always selflessly put the team ahead of himself. Thus, instead of taking a single to complete his maiden century, he asked Shashank Singh to hit boundaries in the last over, resulting in an unbeaten score of 97 for Iyer and PBKS being able to post a big total of 243/5. At the mega auction held in November last year, PBKS made a daring move to go for Iyer, spending ₹26.75 crore on him, making him the second most expensive buy in IPL history. Incredibly, KKR did not retain Iyer, who led them with a long-overdue IPL title the very next season, in 2024. His leadership credentials in the league are well established after he took the Delhi Capitals to the final alongside Ricky Ponting in 2020. Iyer's association with Ponting is back in PBKS, with both hopefuls beginning afresh. He seeks to build, both for himself and the young batsman, the strongest team in PBKS history, a task which Iyer is up to immediately after the first wicket. Also Read | Watch: DC team congratulate KL Rahul on birth of his baby girl Batting at three, Iyer proclaimed his objectives early, flicking such power off the very first ball bowled to him by Kagiso Rabada, as a magnificent six. Thereafter, it became a task for the bowlers to get him out; he went on to complete a half-century in just 27 balls. A 97* innings which had some brilliant knocks, decimating spin as well as pace. Even a painful blow to the ribs from Prasidh Krishna could not slow him down – he hooked the very next ball for six. He could have gone for the century, but Iyer decided that the team's total mattered more than his own milestones, instructing Shashank to go for big hits rather than deal with the singles. Here he goes, in phenomenal style, bashing 23 runs off Mohammed Siraj in the last over, thus taking PBKS to their highest IPL total while batting first. Iyer had been in such a situation previously, 96 being his highest score in 2017 and an unbeaten score of 93 during 415 runs scored in 2018. However, his best-ever campaign was in 2020 when he took DC to the final, losing to the Mumbai Indians.