Pragyan Ojha to Miss Rest of Season to Work on His Game

India discarded spinner, Pragyan Ojha, has decided to skip the rest of the domestic season to gain back his Midas touch by working with former India spinner, Narendra Hirwani, in National Cricket Academy, Bangaluru,

“This has been a really disappointing year for me as a player. Things haven’t gone well but it is just one bad season and I am confident of getting back into the groove. Though people may be saying that I am finished, I know that there is still a lot of cricket left in me. It’s just that I have had a rough time before the start of the season and that did affect my performance. I have decided to skip the one-day tournament so that I can work on my game. It’s not that I am done and dusted. I just want to refocus on my game and work out the glitches which have affected my bowling,” he told TOI.

The current season has not been good for him, as in the Ranji Trophy, he could just manage four wickets in three games, and during the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, he played three games with no success before getting dropped from the side.

Recently, he also went unsold in IPL auction for the third consecutive time, and things have not gone right for him. Before the start of the season, he just got his NOC on the eve of the start of Ranji Trophy, which automatically ruled him out of Hyderabad’s first Ranji tie. However, the first two games of Hyderabad were washed out.

Ojha hasn’t done much in the ongoing domestic season and him going unsold in the IPL auction was expected. The 31-year-old player also revealed he would be playing leagues in various parts of countries and will then look to play county cricket in England,

“I will then be playing in the leagues in Chennai and also in Hyderabad. I am also hoping to go to England for a short time for some county cricket,” he added.

Ojha played his last international game way back in 2013, which was also the last international game for Sachin Tendulkar. It was Ojha who shone in the game with a ten-wicket haul to bag the Man of the Match award as well.

Ironically, it turned out to be last game for him, and he is yet to play any international contest post that. He travelled to South Africa after the West Indies Test series but was dropped as soon as the tour ended.

From then, he is yet even to get his place back in the national team, and in fact, he had also found it difficult to get a permanent place in playing XI, whether in Kolkata or Hyderabad.

Ojha’s exclusion will further weaken Hyderabad, who will already miss the services of Ambati Rayudu for the first two games of the season. He was banned by BCCI for first two games of Vijay Hazare Trophy for breaching Code of Conduct during the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy tie against Karnataka.

Hyderabad will have to appoint a new captain in the absence of Rayudu for the first two games.

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