Indian pace bowler Deepak Chahar plans to be more selective about his cricketing schedule in the future after a stress fracture in the lower back left him to do so. Since his T20I debut in 2018 against England, he has become a regular face in the team in that format and also impressed with his swing and death-overs bowling. The 27-year-old had expected to cement his place in the ODI squad before he was left out due to the injury, which will keep him out of action until April.

“The stress fracture in my back is mainly due to playing excess matches,” Deepak Chahar told the Telegraph newspaper, adding he had been playing intensively for the past two years. “So I have to be a bit selective now. Else, I won’t be able to survive.”

Because of his injury, he will miss the limited-overs home series against Sri Lanka, Australia and South Africa, as well as India’s tour of New Zealand, in the upcoming months. The bowler has been working hard to be match-fit prior to this year’s IPL, which is expected to begin in late March and also cement his place for the T20 World Cup squad.

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“My objective is to obviously keep performing better, but I will also be doing the required training and exercises to regain my lost pace. Since I was playing continuously, I had lost two-three kilometres of pace. As for the variations, I’ll look to better my yorkers, which I think, are already better now than how they used to be. Working on leg-cutters too,” Deepak Chahar added.