Shreyas Iyer opens up on ‘excruciating’ spleen injury, recovery

India batter Shreyas Iyer said he realised the seriousness of his spleen injury only after being hospitalised, describing it as excruciatingly painful. He spoke about his recovery, mindset since returning, and his on-field communication with Virat Kohli.

Rajkot: India batter Shreyas Iyer said he only realised the severity of his spleen injury picked up during the third ODI against Australia after being admitted to hospital, describing the ordeal as ‘excruciatingly painful’.

After that injury, Iyer made a successful return to action by making 49 in India’s ODI series opening win over New Zealand in Vadodara. “It was painful, excruciatingly painful. I didn’t realise how tough that injury was until I got to know that spleen is an important part of our body and it’s an organ and I didn’t even know about the word.

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“Then the next day when I was admitted to the hospital, after that I realised, ‘Wow, okay, this was a severe injury.’ Yes, it was (spleen was learnt as a new word that day),” said Iyer in a chat with broadcasters ahead of the second ODI at Niranjan Shah Stadium in Rajkot.

Iyer also said the recovery process forced him to slow down and reflect. “This process, I felt that I had to give myself a little bit of time not to over-exert myself because I’m someone who can’t sit in one place. I want to keep doing one thing or another.

“But this injury especially gave me time to reflect upon myself, rejuvenate and also relax as much as possible because it’s not that you can get up and start working out straight away.”

“You need to give yourself a lot of time and I was told that within six to eight weeks, you will be back to normal and then you can start training. So I just followed the proper guidelines, which I was provided with and then after that it was a smooth sailing ride,” he elaborated.

Asked if he was going harder for big shots since his return, Iyer said it was instinct rather than design. “Honestly speaking, I’m not trying to do anything. It’s just the instincts. The more I practice in the nets, the easier it gets in the match. Even the nets, I don’t decide that I would be targeting a specific area or taking on the bowlers. I like to be in the moment and I’ve decided that if the ball is in my area, I’m going to take on.

“There’s no two decisions at a time. I think in the previous game, I was under that impression that I’m going to take singles now. In that process, my body also reacted a bit slow. So I just don’t want to be in that frame of mind going forward and this is my mindset currently as of now.”

On his communication with the talismanic Virat Kohli, Iyer said their approach was about staying present and building totals that gave bowlers confidence. “See, the communication has always been funny. We just talk about how we would be going against the bowlers and try to be in the present as much as possible.

“So it’s not something that we would be going harder from ball one. We have decided that we would be giving ourselves a little bit of time. But also, it’s important, especially in 50 overs right now, when you see 300, it’s also easily chaseable.

“So you got to reach a total where you can say to the bowlers, ‘Okay, this is a safe total and we got to win the match as early as possible.’ So it’s just to be in that positive frame of mind and see to it that you give a lot of confidence to the bowlers, especially when they’re coming to bowl,” he concluded.