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Kyle Jamieson opted out of the IPL auction to spend more time at home - and away from the Covid-19 limitations on tour - and to give himself a window to focus on his game in the hopes of cementing his place in the New Zealand squad across formats.

On the eve of Auckland's Plunket Shield opener against Northern Districts, the fast-bowling allrounder revealed this to media.

"Yeah, look, there were a couple of things for me," Jamieson said, when asked why he hadn't put his name on the IPL's auction list.

"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,”

"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" he added.

Jamieson said he was only skipping the 2022 season of the IPL for now, and hoped he would be able to feature in future editions of the tournament.

"I guess it was [a difficult decision] initially," he said. "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,”