Desperate to perform whenever he gets to play, Kiwi all-rounder Jimmy Neesham believes his stint with Kings XI Punjab in this year's Indian Premier League (IPL) is also an excellent opportunity to sharpen his skills off the field, especially batting versus spin.
The 30-year-old, who has played 18 Tests, 63 ODIs and 18 T20Is for New Zealand, understands the need to improve his game against all kinds of bowling in order to make himself indispensable with the bat to Black Caps' cause at the highest level.
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In this quest, he thinks picking the brains of KXIP head coach Anil Kumble, one of the game's finest-ever spinners, through conversations in UAE will be of real help.
"When you have one of the best spinners of all time in your team, I think it’s foolish to not talk about how to play spin, especially in the subcontinent," Neesham told Hindustan Times in an interview from Dubai.
"Obviously, I will have little use of learning to bowl leg-spin, but I can definitely learn what he doesn’t like seeing in a batsman or what annoys him as a bowler."
"As Kiwis, we are renowned strugglers against spin in India, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh. I am going to talk about how to play spin basically," he added.
The IPL has always been glint with the presence of some of the best names from New Zealand. The absence of a similar franchise-based tournament in their homeland has often been talked about. But Neesham said this has nothing do with any lack of quality which, in fact, is there in abundance.
"The reason we don’t have a franchise T20 Cup has nothing to do with the lack of quality players. Having played a fair bit, around the world, I can say our domestic T20 competition is as strong as any competition as far as local talent goes. We are a little bit unlucky in where we are in the world. Our time zones are not that appealing to the big markets."
"As New Zealanders, we find ourselves out of the radar a little bit. There are NZ players who are good enough to be picked up as an overseas player in the IPL. It’s just that a lot of Aussie coaches prefer taking Aussie players!"
"So, may be one day we have little more exposure for New Zealanders so that the local players can get bit more of an even shot. My role is to take the opportunity as given, being among the five-six guys who have got the opportunity to play in IPL," he said.
A rare breed of cricketer most teams wish for, Neesham also talked about how important it is for him to work hard on his fitness being a fast-bowling all-rounder.
"We have to be vigilant about what’s coming. Fast bowlers won’t enjoy me saying this, but as all-rounders we do it twice as hard as anyone. We have seen how many injury prone all-rounders have come and gone. Chris Cairns, Jacob Oram, Andre Flintoff all had shorter careers than they should have due to injury."
"I have had discussions with Steady (NZ coach Gary) since we are close to the season, talking about what series I would probably not mind missing, or the bumper series that I would not miss at all."
"I guess you need to be really open and honest about where you are physically. I think that comes with experience and I guess that’s one of the benefits of being in the late twenties. Everybody has different levels of fatigue that they can endure and play with. I think there is no reason to push too hard and get injured."
Neesham, meanwhile, doesn't think the Kiwis are far away from winning a major trophy at some stage in the future, having made the last two 50-over World Cup finals, with the depth of talent certainly better than ever.
However, while holding great optimism, he also retains deep pain of going down at Lord's last year against England on the now-abolished boundary count law despite a super-over tie and failing to lift his country's maiden World Cup title.
"It’s sort of something that I have come to accept that (it) will never leave me. When you finish like that and the margin between victory and defeat is so small, it really just comes down to pure luck," said Neesham.
"I guess the one thing that you can take out of it, as someone who was there right till the end, is that there was no skill involved at the end! It was just the case of flipping the coin and telling whether you are unlucky or lucky. Unfortunately, we were unlucky."
So, I think what we can do is move on and take the lessons about what we could do differently. The few opportunities we had, we didn’t commit any mistakes but the things didn’t fall our way. That’s sport I guess."
"It would have been great to have another super over, have another crack at the final. But that’s not going to be. In all honesty, I don’t think, there will be another tight super over like that in another World Cup," he signed off.
