Mount Maunganui [New Zealand], December 22 : New Zealand pacer Jacob Duffy said he's enjoying his cricket career without overthinking and acknowledged the challenges of high workload and injuries in the team. He feels privileged that captain Tom Latham trusts him to keep bowling, as per ESPNcricinfo.
Jacob Duffy claimed nine wickets in the third New Zealand vs West Indies Test of the three-match series and helped the Blackcaps clinch a massive 323-run win over the tourists.
Duffy finished the three-match Test series against the West Indies with 23 wickets at an average of 15.43, setting a new New Zealand record for the most wickets in a single home series, surpassing Trent Boult. This also took his career tally to 81 wickets, breaking Richard Hadlee's record for the most wickets by a New Zealand player in a calendar year.
"I'm just enjoying my career, I don't know. I don't look at things too holistically I guess. It has been an awesome ride; it's been testing with all the bowlers going down and obviously the workload is pretty high. But I guess the fact that Tommy [Tom Latham] keeps asking me to bowl the ball, I'd like to view that as a bit of a privilege. You just get to trust you to keep bowling and doing the good stuff, so that's what I'm trying to do," Duffy said as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.
Duffy's international achievements have earned him an Indian Premier League (IPL) opportunity. In last week's IPL mini-auction, he was bought by defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) for INR 2 crore, likely to fill in for the injured Josh Hazlewood.
Duffy described being picked in the IPL auction as a surprising and unusual experience, but also exciting. He's looking forward to playing in India in January and the T20 World Cup ahead.
"I think it's always going to be a surprise isn't it, you see your name on that weird a** auction screen, that was an interesting experience but yeah, like I said it was a very weird experience. It was quite cool, still a surprise, you just never know what's going to happen," Duffy said.
"It's such an odd experience but pretty cool and we've got a big series in India before that and then into the [T20] World Cup and then there's a lot of time in India coming up, it's an amazing place so I'm looking forward to all of it," he added.
India will tour New Zealand for two Tests and three ODIs later next year. Besides the home series against India, Duffy could be a key pick for New Zealand's Test tours of England and Australia. He called the home Tests against India a major series and said playing in England and Australia would be career highlights, especially in red-ball cricket.
"It's amazing, there's Test cricket [against] India at home as well, that's a huge series. It's exciting for the group and definitely I've done two-and-a-half England tours now where I've not played, so to go over there and potentially maybe do that and Aussie away too - those are the pinnacles I think. Those are the highlights of your career potentially, especially in the red-ball scene."