Brendon McCullum predicts Kolkata's player of the decade

The last few months have been really great for Shreyas Iyer. He was absolutely sensational during the T20I series against Sri Lanka as he went on to win the player of the series award. He had scored 204 runs in the three games.

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Besides, Kolkata purchased him for a whopping amount of INR 12.5 crore during the mega auction and then went on to announce him as their new captain. This will be Iyer's second stint as a captain in the Indian T20 league, his first being with Delhi. Thus, there are a lot of expectations from the Mumbai batter to do well for the two-time champions.

Kolkata's coach Brendon McCullum had heaps of praises for Iyer recently. On the eve of the tournament opener between Chennai and the Kolkata-based franchise, the Kiwi legend reckoned that the batter has all the ingredients to become an "absolute superstar". He expressed his excitement to work with Iyer.

”He’s a great buy. He could be the franchise player for Kolkata for the best part of the decade. We’ve got to start somewhere and that’s tomorrow. He’s already incredibly well-respected around the world for what his game is about and what he’s been able to achieve. His best years are certainly in front of him. I think he’s got the potential to be an absolute superstar of the game so I can’t wait to work with him," said Brendon McCullum, as quoted by The Times Of India.

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The 40-year-old also said that he and Iyer share the same perception toward the game. It is to be noted that the 27-year-old was fairly successful during his previous captaincy stint with Delhi. In the two seasons, he led them to the playoffs in one season and the final in another. Thus, it will be exciting to watch Iyer and McCullum work together.

"We both share a common value of how we like to see the game played, which is you get a group of guys together, paint a vision and get the guys to play the game positively, and try and embrace those who are around you. We all will go on a journey together to try and achieve something not just special in terms of results but also in terms of the investment, which hopefully we're going to talk about for many years to come. So I'm really, really excited to work with Shreyas," he added.