Shreyas Iyer: ‘Never imagined I’ll be playing Asia Cup… couldn’t sleep last night due to nervousness’ | Cricket News

Indian cricketer Shreyas Iyer said he had spent a sleepless night on Friday ahead of the Indian cricket team’s Asia Cup 2023 opener against Pakan.
Iyer was laid low a back injury earlier this year as India hosted Australia in the Border-Gavaskar series. His injury flared up after the hosts has played the fourth Test against the visiting Australians. The injury had ruled him out of the three-match ODI series against Australia.
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Back then, reports had said that BCCI had consulted special doctors to take a call on whether he would need surgery. He eventually underwent a surgery in April. Since then he has been at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru for a three-month-long rehab session.
“I never imagined I’ll be playing in the Asia Cup. The recovery was slow and steady. I passed the fitness test one week before selection, and I was really happy with that,” said Iyer ahead of the India vs Pakan match on Saturday.
“I was nervous last night, I couldn’t sleep. I am super excited to play this match against Pakan. It’s a phenomenal feeling to be honest as they are the number 1 team at the moment,” Iyer added.
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He went on to add the the Indian team was in high spirits in Sri Lanka.
“We are privileged to be a part of this team and journey with Rahul sir (Dravid) as the coach and under Rohit Sharma’s captaincy. The spirits are high in the dressing room and we are looking forward to this game. Delighted to be playing against these (Afridi, Rauf, Naseem) bowlers, plan is just to watch the ball and play according to the situation,” he added.
Talking about his back issues with BCCI’s website earlier in the year, Iyer had said: “To be precise, I had this nerve compression, basically a slipped disc which was compressing the nerve and the pain was going all the way to the bottom of my tiny toe. It was horrendous, to be honest. At that point in time, I was in excruciating pain. I wasn’t able to express myself properly as to what I was going through. I had this issue for a while, but I was taking injections and going through various routes to see to it that I am steady and playing many more matches. But it reached a saturation point where I realised that ‘okay, now I have to get a surgery.’ And the physios and the experts — the back experts — told me that it’s important you go under the knife and get this done with.”