It was a dream come true moment for the Indian middle-order batsman Shreyas Iyer when he received his Test cap from the legendary batsman Sunil Gavaskar. Not just he fulfilled his childhood dream of playing in the longest format for the country but also went on to make it more special by registering his maiden century on his Test debut.
Riding on Iyer’s stunning century, India posted a reasonable score of 345 runs on the scoreboard. The star cricketer came to bat at a stage when team India had already lost the wickets of Shubman Gill and Cheteshwar Pujara in quick succession.
However, Iyer didn’t let the pressure get to his head. He stayed in the middle for 60 overs and was even involved in a 121-run stand with Ravindra Jadeja. Shreyas Iyer, who ended day 1 on 75* runs, carried on with his brilliance with the bat on Friday as well. He took little to no time in reaching his maiden century and he did with a series of some stunning boundaries. He scored 105 runs off 171 balls, smashing 13 fours and 2 sixes.
After the match, Shreyas Iyer expressed his gratitude to Suryakumar Yadav for backing him up in the initial days of his career. He went down the memory lane to a game in Kanpur where he played brilliantly to help his team out from a tough position. While speaking to Yadav in a video uploaded on BCCI’s official website, Iyer revealed how Kanpur stadium has been very lucky for him. He said:
“It was always my dream to play Test cricket but things went the other way and I played T20Is, ODIs, and now Test cricket. But, it’s never too late and feel very happy to score century on Test debut. I couldn’t have asked for anything better,”
“Kanpur stadium has been really lucky for me. My debut Ranji season was under Suryakumar’s captainship and I would like to thank him for backing me after my first four innings because I thought I would be out of the team,” he stated.
“And then we were kind of in a same situation when we came back to Kanpur. We were 20 or 30 for five and then I made a 150-run partnership with the tail enders and got to a good position for the team,”
