India batter Shreyas Iyer on Friday revealed what cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar told him while handing him his maiden Test cap before the start of play on Day 1. On debut, Shreyas Iyer went on to smash his maiden century in the longest format of the game. He top-scored for India with a fine 105 before losing his wicket to New Zealand pacer Tim Southee, who ended the innings with a fifer to his name. For the records, Iyer is only the 16th Indian cricketer to score a century on his Test debut.

After stumps on day two, the 26-year-old revealed the words of wisdom former India skipper Gavaskar gave him before while giving him his maiden Test cap on Thursday.

“He (Sunil Gavaskar) motivated me a lot while giving me the cap but the one thing he told me that stayed in my mind is, ‘don’t look too far ahead and just enjoy yourself’,” Iyer said in a video shared by the BCCI on Twitter.

Shreyas Iyer shares a light moment with the great Sunil Gavaskar at the end of Day 2 in Kanpur.#INDvNZ @Paytm pic.twitter.com/WMJXgigje0

— BCCI (@BCCI) November 26, 2021

“I obviously thought Rahul Dravid sir will present me with the debut Test cap, I was not expecting to receive it from Sunil Gavaskar sir. Both are legends of the game, either of them would have given me the cap, I would have been happy.

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“It is a great feeling the way everything panned out but not satisfied with the way I got out,” said Shreyas while replying to an ANI query during a virtual press conference.

At stumps on day two, New Zealand were 129/0, trailing India by 216 runs. Openers Will Young and Tom Latham are unbeaten on 75 and 50, respectively.