Lancashire Cricket has announced the overseas signing of Indian international batsman Shreyas Iyer for the 2021 Royal London Cup.
Iyer will arrive at Old Trafford on July 15 ahead of the start of the 50-over tournament and will remain with the Red Rose for the duration of the month-long group stage.
It will be a good opportunity for Iyer to get acclimatised to English conditions ahead of India’s five-Test tour which begins on August 4.
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.
The 26-year-old Iyer is also the captain of the Delhi Capitals in the Indian Premier League and he captained the team to the final last year.
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.”
