Shreyas Iyer will include in the playing eleven for the second Test against Australia in Delhi, according to head coach Rahul Dravid, Iyer has been given the all-clear by the BCCI medical team and is ready to replace his Mumbai team-mate for the Delhi Test that starts on Friday.
Shreyas Iyer will include in the playing eleven for the second Test against Australia in Delhi, according to head coach Rahul Dravid, who focused that the performances of a player before being sidelined because of a physical issue are valued a lot by the team management while evaluating the squad’s makeup.
Iyer has been ruled out since featuring in the ODI series against Sri Lanka due to a back injury, which also prevented him from playing in the New Zealand series and the first Test in Nagpur.
Suryakumar Yadav earned a call while he was out, but Iyer, who has now become an integral part of the Indian middle order in Test cricket, has been given the all-clear by the BCCI medical team and is ready to replace his Mumbai team-mate for the Delhi Test that starts on Friday.
“I’m glad that he’s back and he’s fit. We’ll take a call after a couple of days of training. He’s had a long session today; he’s done some training today. We’ll assess it tomorrow as well once he comes in for a light hit, and see how he feels in the evening. But certainly, if he’s fit and ready to go, and ready to take the load of a five-day Test match, then, without doubt, his performance means he’ll walk straight into the side,”
said Dravid at the press conference on Wednesday (February 15).
“Without it being written in stone and without it being a rule, certainly we value the contributions of people who’ve been there and if they’ve missed out due to injury then they deserve the right to be able to come back in. If they have performed, irrespective of what has happened in the time they have been injured…it’s something that I can’t answer for everyone but that’s certainly the outlook of the team management.
“So it’ll be nice to have him back and he’s certainly been one of our better players, so he deserves it. And I think people in the team understand that as well, they know that if they are replacing someone injured and if that person comes back, and he will probably come back, then the same thing will be followed for them as well. If they get injured then hopefully we’ll be able to give them the same treatment as well,”
Iyer’s ability to play spin well is viewed as a key skill set in Asian conditions; Dravid also highlighted his attitude in handling pressure, mentioning the Bangladesh Test as an illustration of how he and Ashwin led India to victory in a hazardous situation.
“Shreyas has played well against spin but what’s stood out has been his temperament,” said Dravid. “We’ve been in quite a few pressure situations with Shreyas around. Right from the first Test match, his debut game in Kanpur, in the last year and a half, and every time we’ve been in some tough situations, he, Rishabh, and Jadeja have been the ones who have been bailing us out and playing those critical knocks. His temperament in Bangladesh when we were under pressure, along with Ashwin, so I think that’s something that is a really good sign.
“Obviously along with his skill of playing spin very well – he’s spent a lot of time in domestic cricket before getting in, so he understands, he knows how to get runs – but I think at this level also what counts is your ability to deal with those pressure situations, the temperament, the ability to find solutions and find answers when you’re under pressure, and I think from the little small sample size that we have, he’s been very, very good at that,”
“After just one Test, our mindset doesn’t change because we know that in one Test, you can play very well. We also know that Australia will be looking to fight, they would have learned from the Nagpur Test. They will be keen on using the learnings from the Nagpur Test. We will also look to continue the good cricket that we displayed in Nagpur. We won’t go too much into history. We want to stay in the moment. By history I mean leave 1987, we are not even resting on the laurels of the Nagpur Test win. That’s in the past. We have now come to Delhi. Whatever has happened has happened in Nagpur. We have to play good Test cricket here.”
