Shreyas Iyer in the Indian team, is a bit of mystery. Till now, his career has involved a lots up ins and outs, from the Tests to ODIs and even T20Is too. Last year, after the World Cup success, he was dropped from the team. Then was asked to play in domestic competitions, failed to comply, and eventually was ousted from the BCCI central contract list. Amidst all that, he went on to win the IPL for KKR as skipper, and then was not retained by the team. What luck, one would ask.
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But then, how did he respond to the setbacks? He scored massively in the Ranji Trophy, Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, and Vijay Hazare Trophy too. For the record, in VHT, he scored 325 runs in 5 matches, scored two tons and had an average of 325. His strike-rate was up at 131. In the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, he scored 345 runs in 9 matches at an average of 49.. with one ton and one fifty. His strike rate was at 188. Then at Ranji Trophy, he scored 480 runs in 5 matches. That all, came at an average of 68.
In an interview with Times of India, Shreyas Iyer opened up on his tough times, and said that, the out of the team phase gave him an opportunity to “reassess what went wrong”.
“Extremely satisfying. To be honest it has been a journey and I have learnt a lot in this phase of my life where I got out of the contract after playing the 2023 ODI World Cup. I reassessed where I went wrong, what I should be doing, how well I need to focus on my fitness.
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“I asked myself all these questions and prepared a routine and started focussing on my training and also the skills I added side by side. Once I got continuous matches in domestic cricket, I figured out how important fitness was for me especially when I raised my concerns at the start of the year. Overall I am extremely happy with myself… the way I came out of this, the way I handled the situation and most importantly I believed in myself,” Iyer said.
On being asked if there was anything frustration during this period, it was an immediate no from his side. In fact, Shreyas Iyer just, kind of touched upon the fact, that he wasn’t treated well at KKR. “Frustration toh nahi tha because I was playing IPL. The major focus was to win the IPL and thankfully I won it. I personally felt I didn’t get the recognition I wanted to after winning the IPL but at the end of the day, as long as you have self integrity and you keep doing the right things when no one is watching, that is more important and that is what I kept doing.“
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