Kyle Jamieson has confirmed his absence from this year’s Indian Premier League was his decision with the Black Caps star wanting to work on his craft in New Zealand instead.
Jamieson has had a hectic past 12 months in cricket after he made headlines last year with his $2.4 million deal to play for Royal Challengers Bangalore in the IPL.
That was then followed by the T20 World Cup campaign with the Black Caps along with Test series against India, all of which were overseas and heavily restricted due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Jamieson then returned to New Zealand and featured in the drawn Test series against Bangladesh and has since been embracing a "mini-break" from the game before returning with the Auckland Aces for the Plunket Shield.
"It's been nice these last couple of weeks to take a step back from the game and just refresh and regenerate," Jamieson said.
"It's been nice to have some time at home for a change. It's been a long 12 months."
The pace bowler said during his break he has been "getting away from the game" by renovating his house and spending time with family and friends.
During the break, Jamieson made the call to not return to the IPL.
“There were a couple of things for me," he said.
“The last 12 months has had its challenges with MIQ and bubbles and spending a fair amount of time in that sort of setup, so it was important for me, when I looked at the schedule coming up over the next 12 months, to try to find six weeks or eight weeks where I could spend some time at home.
“The second thing for me, was just reflecting over the past 12 or 24 month and understanding that I’m very young in my career and only two years in and that I wanted to have time to work on my game.
"It just didn’t feel like I was where I wanted to be and if I wanted to compete for spots in the New Zealand side moving forward across all three formats, then I needed to actually work on my game and not just be playing all the time."
Jamieson said he has learned plenty from the heavy schedule with his goal now being selected for the Black Caps' T20 World Cup squad headed to Australia later this year.
“You see different situations in a game and I think I can kind of read them a little bit better. I have an understanding of where my game is at and how that matches up, but then also a fair bit around what I need to work on.
“I think just having been around a fair bit of T20 cricket over the last 12 months has actually been pretty good and given me some good learnings and good stuff to reflect on to how I use that April-May period to try and work on my game.”
Jamieson added he hoped to return to the IPL in the future but right now his focus was on enjoy his break, his cricket, and the upcoming Tests against South Africa and England.
“I sat with [the decision] for a fair while, and it was kind of lucky I had a couple of months in bubbles to sit in my room and have a think, but once I'd made the decision, it was a bit of a weight off my shoulders in a way, in terms of just focusing on myself and trying to get better.
"I'm still pretty young, I still think I'm young at 27, and I've still got a few years ahead, so this is just for this year and looking at what the next 12 months will look like, and hopefully moving forward there will be more opportunities to try and dip my toes into that environment."
SHARE ME