Shreyas Iyer Reveals He Was a Last-Minute Pick in India’s Playing XI for 1st ODI vs England

The dynamic right-hander opened up about the twist of fate.

Indian batting star Shreyas Iyer played a crucial role in India’s victory over England in the first ODI in Nagpur. After hitting a scintillating fifty, Iyer, however, has made a shocking revelation.

The dynamic right-hander opened up about how he was not in India’s plans to feature in the playing XI and was going to watch a movie at night. It was only after getting a call from skipper Rohit Sharma about Virat Kohli’s situation that Iyer went off to sleep.

Notably, Virat Kohli was ruled out earlier in the morning due to a soreness in his right knee.

Speaking about the twist of fate, Iyer told match experts Kevin Pietersen and Parthiv Patel on Star Sports,

“I wasn’t supposed to play the first game. As we all know, Virat unfortunately got injured and then I got the opportunity. But I had kept myself prepared. I knew that, you know, at any point in time, I could get a chance to play. And the same thing happened to me last year during the Asia Cup. I got injured, and someone else came, and he scored a century”.

Iyer added, “It’s actually a funny story. I was watching the movie last night. I thought that I could extend my nighttime. Then I got a call from the skipper saying that I may play because Virat has got a swollen knee, and I hurried back to my room and went off to sleep straight.”

ALSO READ:

India take 1-0 lead in ODI series

Speaking about the match, apart from Shreyas Iyer, Shubman Gill hit a brilliant 87(96) and Axar Patel’s 52(47) guided India to a comfortable four-wicket win in their chase of 249 and take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series.

Earlier, India handed debuts to Yashasvi Jaiswal and Harshit Rana. Rana went on to make a dream debut with a three-wicket haul and achieved a rare record of being the first Indian to take three wickets in each of his debuts across formats (Test, ODI, T20I). On the other hand, Jadeja entered the 600 international wickets club.

The second and the decisive IND vs ENG ODI will be played on Sunday (December 9) in Cuttack.

For more updates, follow CricXtasy on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Telegram, and YouTube.