Shreyas Iyer not available for Sri Lanka tour

Having undergone a shoulder surgery on April 8, Iyer is expected to take at least three months to return to competitive cricket.

Shreyas Iyer had to undergo a surgery on April 8.

Shreyas Iyer is unlikely to recover in time to be considered for India’s limited overs’ tour to Sri Lanka in July, which will clash with the Test squad’s tour to England.

The Mumbai batsman was a contender for the captaincy role in Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma’s absence. But ever since injuring his shoulder during the ODI series against England in March, Iyer has been out of action.

Having undergone a shoulder surgery on April 8, Iyer is expected to take at least three months to return to competitive cricket.

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The medical staff of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the team management and the national selectors will be aiming to keep the batsman injury-free and fresh for the T20 World Cup likely to start in mid-October.

Now, all-rounder Hardik Pandya and veteran opening batsman Shikhar Dhawan will be front-runners to lead India’s second-string squad in Sri Lanka for three ODIs and as many T20Is from July 13 to 27 in Colombo.

Parallel FTP not surprising

The BCCI’s decision to agree for the tour of Sri Lanka with a development squad, leading to two Indian teams based in two different continents at the same time may have raised a few eyebrows but it was expected. “It was bound to happen at some point, with stricter quarantine protocols and limited windows available to respect bilateral cricket commitments,” a BCCI official told Sportstar on Tuesday.

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In fact, in May 2020, this publication had reported that parallel Future Tours Programme (FTP) may be forced into the cricket calendar due to the hard lockdown across the globe last year.