Shreyas Gopal described reaching 100 First-Class caps as a “dream” and said he is “very grateful” to have achieved the milestone.
Shreyas, along with Mohammed Shami, is one of two players who completed the ton during the ongoing Duleep Trophy final between East Zone and South Zone, and the Karnataka all-rounder said he could not have believed he would do so at the beginning of his career.
“Definitely not, but everyone dreams of playing for the country, playing 100 First-Class games. It’s a very special achievement and I’m very grateful for this opportunity,” he told reporters after the end of play on the first day. “I’m very happy about this.”
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The 33-year-old rejoined Karnataka after a year-long stint with Kerala in 2024, and his career has undergone something of a renaissance since. In last year’s Ranji Trophy, he was the third-highest wicket-taker with 48 dismissals, and scored five fifties with the bat as well.
He attributes that improvement to hard work. “I put in a lot of work, especially on bowling,” he said. “I was told that there are not too many leg-spinners who have played upwards of 30-50 games.”
“I wanted to make a point to show that leg-spinners can play red-ball cricket and still be successful. I put a lot of work into my bowling. Batting was a little more gifted for me, in the sense that I grew up as a batsman so I had that natural ability to bat, but bowling took a lot. I bowled a lot of weeks, months and years.”
The improvements, he notes, are mostly tactical. “Using the crease, understanding what situation it is and when to attack, when to defend,” he identified as key.
“Most times it will come off, sometimes, like today, it is not going to come off. But as long as you go in with a plan, as long as you try and achieve something with a goal, it at least gives you a sense of direction.
If you just go there without a plan, most times you are not going to be aware of what’s going to hit you.”
Having accumulated a wealth of experience in his time across the domestic circuit, Gopal also reflected on staying level through the highs and lows. “I think it’s very important to stay neutral, not get too carried away with success, and on days like today, not feel too terrible about it,” he said.
“There was a person who once told me that it’s harder to handle success than failure. When you’re successful, you can get carried away a lot easier. When you don’t get that success, you want to do so much better, so you try and work a lot harder.
But it’s very important that you work as hard as when you’re successful and when things are falling.”
Published on Sep 06, 2026
