"No one was agreeing.." Shreyas Iyer breaks his silence on back injury controversy

Shreyas Iyer lost his central contract as the BCCI was unhappy with him missing Ranji Trophy matches.

Ahead of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 final, Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) skipper Shreyas Iyer dropped a bombshell about his snub from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) central contract list earlier this year.

In February, Iyer was excluded from the list of contracted players for the 2023-24 season, despite being one of the key figures in India’s World Cup 2023 campaign and fulfilling the criteria of playing a minimum number of matches.

This was because the board was unhappy with the Mumbai batsman for not turning up to a few Ranji games. After the first two tests against England, Iyer was dropped from the squad. He was expected to play in the Ranji Trophy, but he opted out citing back spasms. However, the BCCI medical staff had declared Iyer fit.

After missing the Ranji matches, Iyer was dropped from the BCCI central contracts. The board said that “all athletes [must] give precedence to participating in domestic cricket during periods when they are not representing the national team.”

He played in the Ranji Trophy semi-final and final, but in the final, he didn’t take the field for two days because of the same back issues.

“I was definitely struggling with back issues in the longer format”: Shreyas Iyer

Speaking on the eve of the IPL 2024 final, Shreyas Iyer stated he was struggling with his back injury after World Cup 2023. He revealed that during the period of controversy earlier this year, he expressed his concerns over his back spasms but nobody was listening to him.

“I was definitely struggling after the World Cup in the longer format. When I raised my concern, no one was agreeing to it,” Iyer said.

He added, “But at the same time the competition is with myself. When the IPL was approaching all I wanted to see was that I’ve put my best foot forward and whatever planning and strategising we [KKR] did before it, basically if we could execute it to the best of our abilities, we would have been in a great spot – and that’s where we are right now.”

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