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In what will come as a major relief for KKR and Madhya Pradesh fans, star all-rounder Venkatesh Iyer’s ankle is fine and he is doing alright, a reliable source told Sportskeeda.
He twisted his ankle on the opening day of Madhya Pradesh’s Elite Group C away match against Kerala, sending fans and social media reports into overdrive. However, Sportskeeda has learnt that there’s no serious injury concern. The 30-year-old didn’t take the field on Friday, January 24, as a precautionary measure.
Playing his third ball, Iyer flicked fast bowler NP Basil towards deep square leg and twisted his right ankle in the action. He couldn’t even complete a run, tumbling down on the middle of the pitch grimacing in pain. With less than two months out of IPL 2025, KKR fans started fretting further as their ₹23.75 crore signing hobbled off the field after getting treatment.
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MP were staring down the barrel at 50 for four with their middle-order mainstay out injured. They slipped further to 95 for seven. Then, in a lionhearted moment, Venkatesh Iyer came back out again, the limp still apparent.
The seam-bowling all-rounder didn’t let his injured ankle stop him from dancing down the track. The tall southpaw took a particular liking to left-arm spinner Aditya Sarvate and smashed him for a six and a boundary. He stitched together 43 runs for the ninth wicket with pacer Avesh Khan as MP reached a decent 160. Venkatesh Iyer (42 off 80) was out on the penultimate ball of the innings with the same NP Basil shattering his stumps.
Kerala took a slender first-innings lead of seven runs. Interestingly, Baba Aparajith also retired hurt. Coming out to bat at No. 10, the former Tamil Nadu batter laboured his way to seven off 20 balls before walking off.
More to follow…
How have Venkatesh Iyer and MP fared in Ranji Trophy 2024-25?
The second leg of the 2024-25 Ranji Trophy season began on Thursday, January 23. Madhya Pradesh, though, have very slim hopes of making the knockouts. They are sixth in the eight-team group with just 10 points from five matches.
MP started with three consecutive draws, failing to secure the first-innings lead on each occasion. Venkatesh Iyer also began poorly with just 58 runs from three innings. He didn't play versus Punjab.
MP bounced back in stirring fashion, beating Bihar by an innings and 108 runs. Iyer (174 off 176) made headlines along with captain Shubham Sharma (240 off 289). They almost made it two-in-two against Bengal. Having looked set to chase down a tall target of 338, they crumbled only 12 runs short. Venkatesh Iyer nurtured a painstaking 95-ball 53 in the fourth innings.
The all-rounder has so far accumulated 330 runs across seven outings at an average of 47.14 and a strike rate of 72.84.
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