Shreyas Iyer, who is marred by a back injury, has reported at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) for treatment after taking a bold decision to defer his surgery and make himself available for the all-important World Test Championship (WTC) final 2023.
A Cricbuzz report states that Shreyas has taken an injection on Wednesday (March 29) and recovery period will be decided by the NCA coaching staff who will be closely monitoring the star batter's situation.
"He has met the specialist and the NCA officials. All are on the same page that the operation can be deferred. He will follow the experts' advice," Cricbuzz reported via a source privy to the development.
Shreyas only have two months to recover in order to make himself available for the upcoming WTC final which will be played from June 7 to June 11 at the Oval. He will hope to get fit in time to reclaim his spot in the middle order in the summit clash. The surgery would have kept the batter out of action for at least six months.
The recurring back injury ruled Shreyas out of the ODIs against New Zealand. Also he missed out on the first Test of the Border-Gavaskar Test series against Australia. Although he came back to play the rest of the three Tests but Shreyas' back injury flared up in the final Test again and he didn't turn out to bat in the match which ended in a draw. Iyer played the second and third Tests of the series in Delhi and Indore respectively, scoring just 42 runs in four innings. Shreyas' aggravated back injury also spoiled his chance to play for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 which is schedule to kick start from March 31. Meanwhile, KKR recently announced Nitish Rana as their skipper for the sixteenth season of the IPL.
KKR head coach Chandrakant Pandit admitted that Shreyas Iyer will surely be missed as he is an important player for the side.
"Whatever little cricket I have played or coached, I have never gone back over things like squad unavailability. Shreyas's absence will make a difference since he is important, but this is truly unfortunate. We are hoping Shreyas will be back very soon and that will make a lot of difference to the team," Pandit said.
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