India vs Australia: Shreyas Iyer ruled out of ODI series with back injury, likely to miss portion of IPL

Shreyas Iyer will not be fit for the ODI series against Australia it was confirmed on Tuesday. The three-match ODI series starts on 17 March at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.

There are also question marks over his availability for the Indian Premier League (IPL) which gets underway on 31 March. Iyer is the designated captain for the Kolkata Knight Riders. If he is forced to missing a portion or entirety of the IPL, it would be a huge blow to the two-time IPL champions.

Iyer had earlier failed to bat in the fourth Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. As per the Indian cricket board, the 28-year-old complained of lower back spasms after Day 3 of the fourth Test. He was then taken for scans and then ruled him out of the match completely.

Iyer had sustained a back injury after the Test series in Bangladesh which ruled him out of the series against Sri Lanka and New Zealand.

He then missed the first Test – with Suryakumar Yadav coming in as a replacement – against Australia as he was undergoing rehab at the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru. Upon recovery, he played the second and third Tests where he scored 4, 12, 0 and 26 respectively.

For most of the series, he fielded at close-in catching positions, which could have increased the load on his back too.

India captain Rohit Sharma had called it “unfortunate” and stated that the situation “didn’t look good” after the conclusion of the fourth Test in Ahmedabad on Monday.

“Poor guy. It just was such an unfortunate incident. He had to wait all day to bat and then when the day got over, the issue he had with his back, recurred. He was sent to the hospital to take scans. I don’t know the exact report of the scans, but he does not seem to be doing that well,” Rohit had said.

“Obviously, that’s why he’s not present here, so we don’t know the exact status of how long he will take to recover or when he will be back. When it happened, it did not look that great. I hope he recovers quickly and comes back and plays again,” he added.

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