Shreyas Iyer stays in hotel, ruled out of India vs Sri Lanka Asia Cup Super 4 match due to back spasm
India batter Shreyas Iyer has been ruled out of the Asia Cup Super 4 match against Sri Lanka due to back spasm, announced BCCI, about an hour before the match on Tuesday. Iyer, who suffered the niggle during a warm-up session on Sunday ahead of India’s previous match against Pakistan, has not travelled with the team to the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, BCCI added.
India’s Shreyas Iyer(AP)
“Shreyas Iyer is feeling better but is yet to fully recover from back spasm. He has been adviced rest by the BCCI Medical Team and has not travelled with the team to the stadium today for India’s Super 4 match against Sri Lanka,” BCCI tweeted.
After the victory against Pakistan, which needed two days to complete because of rain, India captain Rohit Sharma revealed that KL Rahul was a last-minute addition to India’s XI after Iyer was unavailable.
Iyer’s fitness will be monitored closely as this is the third time the batter has hurt his back in the last six or seven months. It was because of the back injury that Iyer missed part of the home series against Australia and the entire IPL. He only made a comeback to the Indian side in this Asia Cup.
He played the group-stage matches against Pakistan and Nepal. The right-hander was out for 14 in the match against Pakistan while trying to pull a Haris Rauf delivery while he did not get to bat against Nepal.
BCCI did not give much details about the extent of Iyer’s injury but the fact that it has got to do with his back is bound to raise questions over the National Cricket Academy. Re-occurring injuries have been one of the biggest problems in Indian cricket in the last couple of years.
Iyer is not the only one. The likes of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Chahar, Jasprit Bumrah have all suffered the same injury from which they recovered after joining the team.
With the World Cup knocking at the doors, it will be interesting to see whether India continue with Iyer, who has not yet proven his fitness and is yet to recover fully from his back injury.
Who can replace Shreyas Iyer if he does not recover in time?
What are India’s options? In the XI, there might not be such a big problem with KL Rahul announcing his return with a sparkling century against Pakistan and Ishan Kishan delivering at No.5 but in the squad, they only have Suryakumar Yadav as a backup. That leaves room for either Tilak Varma or Sanju Samson. With Kishan and Rahul already there in the squad as keepers, young Tilak, who is yet to play in ODIs, might just be preferred because of the left-hander advantage and his part-time bowling. India can still make changes to their squad till the end of this month.
