Shreyas Iyer is in bit of pain, says Dhawan

Iyer hurt his left shoulder while trying to effect a diving stop during Rajasthan Royals innings on Wednesday and had to leave the field

Dubai::Delhi Capitals skipper Shreyas Iyer remains “in a bit of pain” after hurting his left shoulder and a complete picture will emerge only after the arrival of his scan reports, said his teammate Shikhar Dhawan.

Iyer hurt his left shoulder while trying to effect a diving stop during Rajasthan Royals innings on Wednesday and had to leave the field.

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“He (Iyer) is in a bit of pain but good thing is he is able to move his shoulder. I haven’t spoken to him at length,” said stand-in captain Dhawan after his team’s 13-run win. The senior opener led his team well during the end stages of the game.

“One moment it was quite even and to pick it back from there was a team effort. It was important we stay positive as a team. I knew their batting isn’t deep and if we got their top-order we can get them,” the seasoned India international said.

Dhawan was all praise for his pacers, including Purple Cap winner Kagiso Rabada (18 wickets) and the fastest bowler in world cricket, Anrich Nortje. “Every time, we want them to deliver they’re delivering,” Dhawan said.

He also praised debutant Tushar Deshpande.

“He showed courage. The line and length he bowled was amazing. We have to keep the momentum. It’s a long tournament. We will keep the process going,” Dhawan said.
RR captain Steve Smith pointed out that the slowness of the track was one of the reasons for the defeat.

“It was disappointing. The wicket slowed up a bit as the game went on. We got off to a good start with Jos (Buttler) and (Ben Stokes) Stokesy, then we lost a couple wickets and got another partnership between Stokesy and Sanju (Samson), then again lost wickets in clumps and on slow wickets it is hard to make up too many runs at the back-end,” Smith said.

“We needed to take it a bit deeper from some of our batters and we were not able to do that. We thought we bowled well at the back-end and restricted them to 160-odd, that was probably around par on this wicket,” the Royals skipper said.