IPL certainly changed my life: Kyle Jamieson

Kyle Jamieson proved to be a valuable asset to the Royal Challengers Bangalore in his maiden IPL where he played 7 matches and claimed 9 crucial wickets.

More importantly, his all-round flair allowed the Challengers to play an extra batter or bowler that suited the needs of their team. However, in the upcoming edition of the tournament, the towering Kiwi all-rounder won’t be seen as he wanted to spend some time with his family and also wanted to take a close look at his game.

In a presser ahead of Auckland’s Plunket Shield opener, Jamieson opened up, quoting, “Yeah, look, there were a couple of things for me. Firstly, after the last 12 months, it's had its challenges with MIQs (managed isolation and quarantine) and bubbles and spending a fair amount of time in that sort of set-up. It was important for me, when I look at the schedule coming up over the next 12 months to try and find six weeks or eight weeks where I can spend some time at home.”

He further added, “The second thing for me was, reflecting over the last 12-24 months and understanding that I'm very young in my [international] career and only two years in, that I wanted to have time to work on my game. I guess I didn't really feel like I was where I wanted to be and if I want to compete for spots in the New Zealand sides moving forward across all three formats, I actually need to spend time working on my game and not just trying to play the whole time. Yeah, for me it was just about time at home and just time to work on my game.”

Jamieson also quoted that it was just 2022 that he won’t be playing IPL. He will be back to the tournament in the upcoming editions. His exact words were, “I guess it was [a difficult decision] initially. I sat with it 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 shoulder in a way, in terms of just focusing on myself and trying to get better.”

He was also heard citing, “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."

He was overwhelmed at the fact that he was bought for the second-highest price in the antiquity of the IPL auction. He said, “I don't think it's either good or bad, it's just another learning, another experience to have, and just trying to learn from situations. Look, it certainly changed my life and yeah, it was a big moment that happened, but I guess just trying to learn from that, learn from the experience I had in the IPL, and more so the 12 months in general, and I guess some of the restrictions we had around cricket.”

He emphasized how resting for a couple weeks has helped him with a lot of contemplations. Kyle quoted, “It's been good in a way to sit back over these last couple of weeks and over the last couple of months to reflect on the 12 months that have gone and take that stuff into the next couple of Tests (against South Africa) and into the next couple of months moving forward."

Jamieson concluded by saying, “Look, you see different situations in a game. 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."