T. Natarajan, a left-arm pacer who was part of the Indian squad during their historic Border-Gavaskar Trophy victory in 2020-21, explained why he hasn’t been involved in first-class cricket for four years now.
Natarajan is mainly recognized for his performances in white-ball limited overs games. For instance, he has been crucial to the Sunrisers Hyderabad team where he is one of their premier wicket-takers. In total, he has taken 15 wickets in IPL 2024.
In an interview with The Times of India, Natarajan stated that although he still desires to appear at Test level, workload Management has compelled him to entirely avoid such formats so as not to risk overburdening himself or suffering from exhaustion.
“I have not played red-ball cricket (meaning first class matches) for almost four years now. It’s not that I don’t love playing red-ball cricket, but it becomes more taxing for me to continue doing it. Currently there is no red ball cricket from my end,” he revealed.
“When I have a big workload, my knee gives me trouble. For that reason, I stopped playing,” he further stated.
The pacer perceives the red ball format as the much more superior one and he will hope to train himself up and build his body such that it can cope with the physical and mental demands that come along with a longer format.
“I prefer playing with the red balls than white balls. There is always something that makes me happy whenever I am playing red ball cricket. In case things happen this way, I am looking at resuming after some years. If I work on my training intensely over these two years, then I am likely to come back. However, at the moment all my concentration is on white ball cricket,” he said.
The last ODI in which Natarajan took part happened to be against England last year March 2021 and since then he has not been seen in any of Team India games or even in any international cricket leagues. He intends to leave behind contention for injury concerns so as to earn himself a rank in India’s squad soon enough.
