Jason Roy has finally revealed the reasons that forced him to opt out of the 17th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). The star England batter disclosed that the need to spend some quality time with his young family and workload management forced him to take the "huge decision".
Roy, 33, has had a turbulent few years. The Durban-born was not included in England's squad for the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2022 and was also not named in the team's World Cup 2023 squad. He went undrafted for The Hundred's upcoming edition and gave up on his England Incremental Contract to feature in the MLC 2023 (Major League Cricket) for Los Angeles Knight Riders.
Missing this year's IPL was a huge decision, I think," Roy said on The Athlete's Voice podcast. "KKR put so much trust in me by retaining me after a decent year last year and being available for them throughout the year and all the other competitions, you know, I felt like I owe them a huge amount.
"It was a very big decision, but a decision I came to just because it was my daughter's fifth birthday as soon as our first game was, there were a few things going on, I was quite tired after the start of my year."
"I've come off the back of not a huge amount of cricket, so the last couple of months have really taken it out of me. And so I was very honest to KKR and we've got a fantastic relationship, so we were able to come to an agreement and stuff like that on why I wasn't coming. They completely understood so I'm very grateful to them for that. But I just had to put myself first, you know, just mindset and body," he added.
