New dad Jamieson keen to 'diffuse some fireworks' on the cricket field again

In between changing nappies and cuddling his newborn son Archie, Kyle Jamieson has had some time to watch cricket as a fan. The New Zealand fast bowler hasn't played since the IPL 2025 final in June, but for the first time in a while, his absence - from New Zealand's tour of Zimbabwe in July-August - wasn't through injury.

Like any new dad, he has loved the time at home, but equally, the chance to return to cricket next week against Australia at Mount Maunganui has him champing at the bit. And having had plenty of time to watch Australia's recent T20I series against West Indies and South Africa, he's excited for the contest.

"They [Australia] are going pretty hard, and it's been a really entertaining watch as a fan of the game," Jamieson told ESPNcricinfo. "In a way, it'll be cool to see it up close, how they're going about things. And in the same way, it's a nice little challenge for us to go about forming a plan to maybe try and diffuse some of those fireworks."

Jamieson, 30, might feel like the new kid at school within his own group as well. He last played for New Zealand in the Champions Trophy in February. Since then, long-time coach Gary Stead has resigned, and new coach Rob Walter has come in.

The team made a winning start in Zimbabwe, claiming the T20I tri-series involving South Africa and Zimbabwe. The upcoming Australia series kickstarts a massive summer of white-ball cricket for New Zealand, with series against England and West Indies to follow ahead of the T20 World Cup. Jamieson is excited to see what Walter has planned for a group that will change over the course of the summer, given the number of players that will return from injury at various stages.

"Having not gone on that tour of Zimbabwe, I'm yet to immerse myself in that new kind of coaching group and see what that direction looks like," Jamieson said. "Starting next week, we've got a huge amount of white-ball cricket back-to-back, really. So it'll be the chance, I think, for everyone to kind of sit down and kind of get a read on Rob's vision, and kind of where he wants to take the group. And we'll be getting some bodies back as well, and that will certainly help to build towards that T20 World Cup."

Jamieson's focus is purely on white-ball cricket at the moment. He has endured a frustrating few years since initially having back surgery to mitigate against recurring stress fractures.

Out of all the success stories that New Zealand-based surgeons Grahame Inglis and Rowan Schouten have had repairing fast bowlers' backs with screws and titanium cables - which include Shane Bond, Matt Henry, Jasprit Bumrah and Jofra Archer - Jamieson is the rarest of cases so far, with the fracture reopening at one of the screws in 2024.

"They hadn't really seen that before or at all, so they were pretty stumped," Jamieson said.

It has led to a slow rebuild. The success of his return in the Champions Trophy, the PSL and IPL this year has been encouraging. The next step is first-class cricket, but it is not a process he wants to rush.

"The red-ball stuff is the next piece of the puzzle," Jamieson said. "How do we put that into the calendar? How do we sort of dip the toes into that, as opposed to jumping in the deep end? So we've had a few conversations with different people around what that may look like.

"But at the moment, it's very much this next month with a white-ball focus, and then as we hit November, we'll see where I'm at physically and what we think is the right plan to not just try and get back to red-ball cricket now, but I guess trying to continue to play it over the next however many years."

In the meantime, Jamieson has locked in on becoming the best short-form bowler he can be. His return to the IPL with Punjab Kings was an eye-opening experience after four years away, with the Impact Player rule changing the way T20 batters attack bowlers now.

"Just in general, I absolutely loved being back there," Jamieson said. "I hadn't been [at the IPL] for four years, and a very different situation to when I went last time for a whole lot of reasons. I just loved being back in that arena and just watching all the world's best go about it. And I felt like I learned a heck of a lot, even only in the two weeks that I was there.

"With that Impact Player, I think teams just come harder. Guys just keep coming. So you've got to have a few tools. But you've got to, I think, make peace with the fact that what your figures may have looked like three, four or five years ago, is probably not really that relevant to what they're going to look like now."

Australia's batting has followed a Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH)-type blueprint in some ways, with connections through Pat Cummins, Travis Head and former New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori, who is SRH coach as well as Australia bowling coach.

Jamieson is taking inspiration from another man in Australia's camp on how to bowl in modern T20 cricket without trying too many tricks.

"Something I got stuck on early in my T20 career was just trying to do everything and doing none of it really that well," Jamieson said. "So I just stick to my strength. I watch someone like Josh Hazlewood bowl, and feel like for the most part, he keeps it pretty simple. He may speak a little bit differently about that, but I sort of take a lot of inspiration around what he does and the simplicity, but how he just does it so well. And there's probably a bit of a gold nugget in that you can probably get too carried away.

"Just trying to maximise the new ball, a little bit of swing and movement, and if the surface has a little bit of bounce, you try and make the most of that. But it's still hard to hit from the top of the stumps. And if you just can do that with good energy on the ball, it can be really, really effective."