English county side Lancashire announced on Monday that they have signed up India’s Shreyas Iyer for the 2021 Royal London Cup.
Iyer will be in Old Trafford from 15 July before the ODI tournament starts and will stay with them for the duration of the month-long group stage.
The right hander will have a good chance to get used to English conditions before India travel to England for a five-Test tour beginning 4 August.
Iyer has already played 50 One-Day and T20 Internationals for India and given how batsmen tend to struggle in England, a good run of form could be just what he needs to break into the Indian Test team.
In total, Iyer has scored over 6,000 One-Day runs across his career so far hitting nine centuries. He averages just short of 45 in ODI cricket with eight fifties and a century to his name, since debuting in 2017.
According to the club’s statement, “The signing of Shreyas Iyer signals the latest step in Lancashire’s long association with Indian cricket, which stretches back more than 50 years when Indian International wicketkeeper batsman Farokh Engineer joined the county in 1968. He would go on to become a Lancashire legend and now serves as a Vice-President of the Club. Since Engineer retired, four further Indian Internationals – Murali Kartik, Dinesh Mongia, V.V.S. Laxman and Sourav Ganguly – have represented the Red Rose with distinction.”
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)