Gautam Gambhir’s likely appointment as India’s head coach might give a fresh start to Shreyas Iyer’s international career, especially during the three-match ODI series against Sri Lanka in July-August. Iyer, who successfully captained Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL, might also play in the five-match T20I series against Zimbabwe starting July 5, but his better chance for a comeback is the ODI series against Sri Lanka. Gambhir, the leading candidate for the India coach role, and Iyer had a successful partnership during KKR’s winning IPL season this year. Iyer, a skilled Mumbai right-hander and a strong 50-over batsman, could finally see good luck after some difficult months. Gambhir was the mentor for the KKR team.
Iyer and Ishan Kishan lost their central contracts with BCCI because they seemed unwilling to play in the Ranji Trophy.
Despite this, Iyer claimed that his ongoing lower back problem was the reason he couldn’t play, although he did participate in the Ranji Trophy final and scored around 90 runs.
Right now, many young players who did well in the IPL are practicing at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru. They are preparing for five T20 matches against Zimbabwe, which will be announced sometime next week.
“Shreyas is not at the National Cricket Academy right now. The players there mostly did well in the Indian Premier League and might be picked for the Zimbabwe team.
Abhishek Sharma, Riyan Parag, Mayank Yadav, Harshit Rana, Nitish Reddy, Vijaykumar Vyshak, and Yash Dayal are all at the training camp. Some of them will play in the Zimbabwe T20 matches,” a person from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) told PTI without sharing their name.
“But it’s likely that Shreyas will join the team for the three one-day games in Sri Lanka. The last one-day game India played was in South Africa, and he scored 52 runs. He also scored over 500 runs (530) in the World Cup and has an average of about 50. Can they really leave him out?” the person added.
It’s clear that experienced players like Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, along with fast bowling leader Jasprit Bumrah, will concentrate on One-Day Internationals (ODIs) and Test matches for the rest of the season. This includes nine World Test Championship (WTC) matches from September 2024 to January 2025.
The plan has two matches at home against Bangladesh and New Zealand each, five matches away against Australia, and the important ODI Champions Trophy in Pakistan.
Many new players, including some from the IPL, will be in the T20I team, and players like Rinku Singh, Shubman Gill, Avesh Khan, and Khaleel Ahmed are also likely to go to Zimbabwe.
If Hardik Pandya and Suryakumar Yadav don’t get a break, they are expected to be the captain and vice-captain for the tour, even though they have been playing non-stop since the beginning of the IPL.
