India batter Shreyas Iyer recalled his interaction with former India captain MS Dhoni while he was on the road to recovery from a shoulder injury. Iyer had got himself injured during the ODI series against England at home.
The Delhi Capitals (DC) star missed the first leg of IPL 2021 and he only joined them for the second phase in UAE. Before the second half, he was spotted playing football with Dhoni and some Bollywood stars in Mumbai.
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Speaking in a press conference, the 26-year-old said, "Mahi bhai was there and we spoke a little bit about IPL at that point of time, never discussed about winning the IPL (chuckles). You know he is really calm and composed, whenever you for a chat, he’s got so much so experience in the IPL and different forms of the game, so it’s always fun to chat with him.”
Iyer had his focus on cricket, but he used the time to switch his mind before getting completely fit to return to competitive cricket. He admitted that playing football did help him in improving his fitness as it's a sports of complete activeness for 90 minutes.
“It didn’t switch me off completely because my focus was more on cricket rather than playing football. But I really love going out there and trying different sports – whether it be table tennis or badminton, but football is something I’ve been playing from my school days. And when I went and played with my Bollywood friends over there, they were very competitive and they were friendly at the same time," said Iyer.
He added, "So it was a good mixture, and also I wanted to get into that competitive zone and see it to that my fitness level was pretty intact. Because you keep running 90 minutes and it’s about how your stamina pans out throughout the game.”
Iyer on Friday (November 26) smashed a hundred in his debut Test match against New Zealand. He became the 16th Indian batter to make a hundred on his Test debut.
Iyer, who was included in the side after KL Rahul's injury, scored 105 off 171 balls before Tim Southee dismissed him on Day 2.
