Shreyas Iyer to undergo back surgery

Indian cricketer Shreyas Iyer will undergo back surgery and will therefore miss the entire 2023 Indian T20 League, and the World Test Championship final in June. 

It is learned that Iyer, who is Kolkata’s full time skipper at the Indian T20 League, will be travelling abroad for the surgery and is expected to be out of action for at least three months before he resumes training. 

The recurring lower back injury also kept Iyer out of the final Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy last month and was even ruled out of the ODI series against the Kangaroos that followed a month after.  Before that, he had experienced a couple of problems due to the same injury in December. 

It is understood that on both occasions he’d experienced lower back swelling, due to issues stemming from a bulge in one of his spine discs which has resulted in an affected nerve. The nerve runs along the right leg and has caused pain in Iyer’s calf, which has restricted his mobility. It is also understood that he had been using injections to help numb the back pain

Ahead of Indian T20 League 2023, Nitish Rana was named Kolkata’s interim captain.