MUMBAI: Soon after his ended his three-year long drought for a domestic red-ball century, scoring a fluent 142 in 190 balls, inclusive of 12 fours and four sixes, on Day 2 of Mumbai’s Ranji Trophy 2024-25 match against Maharashtra at the Sharad Pawar Cricket Academy in BKC, Mumbai on Saturday, Shreyas Iyer made it clear that he was itching for a comeback into India’s Test side, even though that prospect looks a far cry right now.
“Absolutely! That’s why I’ve been playing. I mean, or else I would have given a reason and sat out,” Iyer responded, when quizzed about whether there was still a drive in him to wear the white jersey. “I am absolutely keen for a comeback but yes, as we say, control the controllables, and my job is to keep performing and keep participating (in matches) as much as possible and also see that my body is in the best shape. So, I’ll take the best decision possible according to that,” stressed the 29-year-old.
This was the Mumbaikar’s first hundred in first-class cricket since he scored 105 against New Zealand at Kanpur in November 2021, making a smashing Test debut. Since then, there was then an agonisingly long wait for his 14th red-ball ton that Iyer had to endure. The closest he came was when he stroked a breezy 95 off 111 balls for Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy final at the Wankhede Stadium, when his mishit off Aman Mokhade ended up in long off’s hands.
Naturally, the man was relieved. “Yes, it feels special. Coming back after a very long time, obviously I was feeling a bit, you know, down with my injuries, but now getting a century after a very long time, it’s a great feeling,” Iyer said.
Describing his approach during his 14th first-class century, Iyer said, “Well, nowadays when the teams come up, they straight away put a defensive field right from ball one. So, I was just trying to take some time in between trying to play more balls than scoring shots. That was my plan. Play session by session and try to see how much my body can take. I don’t want to sound too rude or anything, but I feel that they bowled decently, but the way Ayush (Mhatre, scored 176)batted, he took away the rest of the bowlers and they were a bit down. So, for me to just take singles it became easier.”
Somewhere down the line, Iyer has been fearful that his serious back injury, which required a major surgery in London last year, might flare up again. The occasional back spasms that he would experience after 30-40 minutes of batting were not helping either. Is there still a fear factor lurking inside him about it?
“Not anymore. I think the surgery was last year and after that I played (in the) (ODI) World Cup, Asia Cup and many more matches. But there was this phase where I was feeling that it might occur again. But yes, I trained a lot to see to it that I have optimum fitness and obviously, it comes here and there, but now my capacity has improved a lot,” he assured.
The injury has made him train harder to prevent a recurrence. “Obviously, I improved my long distance running and that’s what I wanted to increase my patience as well in terms of the longer format and according to that I was (undertaking) Intensive training, like I was stressing up my body, like pushing my body 400, 800 meters of running and then I was trying to push my limits and seeing to it that I was at the best fitness possible. When I stand for a long to back, my back does get tight automatically,” he said. Asked specifically if he still had any issues with his back which he has to be wary about, Iyer asserted: “Of no, it’s completely fine.”
