Kolkata: Shreyas Iyer slipping into comeback mode with a Vijay Hazare Trophy match against Himachal Pradesh on Tuesday is a way of life for top grade players these days. Only, Iyer’s case isn’t purely about staging a comeback for the sake of it. Once touted as an all-format asset with leadership qualities, Iyer’s journey over the last few years has been defined less by his career and more by the often unforgiving road back from setbacks.
His comeback story is not just about returning from injury — it is about reclaiming confidence, rhythm and relevance in one of the most competitive sporting ecosystems where out of sight can well be out of mind.
Here’s recalling exactly why Iyer was sidelined for 73 days — he had run backwards from cover point to hold on to a stunning catch to dismiss Alex Carey at Sydney but was injured in the process, suffering a lacerated spleen that led to internal bleeding.
There was no issue with his form, neither was he searching for runs. In fact, Iyer embodies modern Indian batting. Audacious through the off-side with a range of shots and especially effective against spin, Iyer seemed ideal for the middle order slot across formats. There was the thing about the rising ball though. Torn between hooking, ducking, parrying and evading, Iyer was continuously giving reasons to be criticised. Till he dealt with it in his own way, with mixed results of course, but plenty of intent and that can’t be a bad thing.
Iyer was nudged to be a leader, something he wasn’t shy about saying publicly that he wanted. But cricket careers rarely follow straight lines and Iyer’s trajectory was abruptly altered by recurring back issues. Back injuries have proved a bane for the modern professional cricketer, particularly a batter who relies on core strength, balance and rotational power.
Jasprit Bumrah is a walking example of why this type of injury demands not just physical healing but constant management, workload control and technical adjustments. For Iyer, repeated disruptions never allowed him to settle into a proper corrective mode.
A left shoulder injury forced him to miss the first half of the 2021 IPL, and then in 2023 he was ruled out for the entire season because of a back injury. Each absence meant missed series, lost match practice, and most significantly opportunities seized by others waiting in the wings. Iyer lost his central contract in 2024, ostensibly because it was felt that he had not shown enough hunger for Test cricket.
However, he returned to score 95 for Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy final before breaking KKR’s 10-year title drought as captain. When push came to shove last year, Iyer requested BCCI for a six-month break from red-ball cricket due to concerns about his back, which the board promptly approved. And then the injury at the SCG happened.
The timing of the injuries couldn’t have been worse given how Indian cricket’s supply line is overflowing with middle-order options. When a player becomes unavailable, the system does not pause — it moves to the next alternative. Iyer returning to the scheme of things doesn’t merely mean being fit again, but being better than those who replaced him. That’s an exceptionally high bar these days.
The selectors appointing Iyer vice-captain (he will play subject to passing a fitness test) for the New Zealand ODI series sends a strong message that they are backing him for ODIs. But the psychological aspect of the anticipation that Iyer will hit the ground running can weigh one down. Repeated injuries can erode confidence to the point that a player begins to question his body while selectors and team management worry about long-term reliability. Playing under that shadow requires immense mental strength, especially in an unrelenting system of elimination.
Iyer is 31. He is an IPL winning captain and an exceptional middle-order batter who was first drafted into a Test squad as Virat Kohli’s replacement. But right now, he isn’t in the scheme of things for T20Is or Tests. What makes the situation more complicated is that Iyer isn’t a fringe player. He is seen as someone who was once projected to be a leader. With that kind of history, each innings somehow becomes a referendum on his spot in the context of India’s white-ball ambitions.
Iyer is not only staging a comeback, he is also battling time, competition, expectation and the memory of what he once was supposed to become. It starts again, on Tuesday in the Vijay Hazare Trophy when he leads Mumbai against Himachal Pradesh in Jaipur.