Having sustained a stress fracture in his lower back during the ODI series against West Indies last month, India seamer Deepak Chahar now aims to be more selective about his playing schedule going ahead.

Read Also: MSK Prasad expects injured Deepak Chahar to be out of action till March-April 

Chahar has become a regular pick in the shortest format ever since his T20I debut against England in 2018. Thanks to his brilliance in T20Is, the 27-year-old was given a chance to cement place in the ODI side but he was laid low by the injury, which will keep him out of action until April.

"The stress fracture in my back is mainly due to playing excess matches," Chahar told the Telegraph newspaper, adding he had been playing intensively for the past two years.

"So I have to be a bit selective now. Else, I won’t be able to survive."

Chahar, who recently helped India to win a T20I series against Bangladesh with the bowling figures of 6/7, will miss the upcoming white-ball series at home against Sri Lanka, Australia and South Africa. He will also have to skip India's tour of New Zealand, starting January 24.

The bowler reckons trying to be match-fit ahead of IPL 2020, which is likely to start in the last week of March, is a reasonable target.

"My objective is to obviously keep performing better, but I will also be doing the required training and exercises to regain my lost pace. Since I was playing continuously, I had lost two-three kilometres of pace.

"As for the variations, I'll look to better my yorkers, which I think, are already better now than how they used to be. Working on leg-cutters too," Chahar said.

(Inputs from Reuters)