IPL 2020: LeBron James-inspired Manoj Tiwary boldly claims to play cricket till 2029

India all-rounder Manoj Tiwary was recently interviewed by a leading Indian daily and made a startling claim. He talked about his stop-start IPL career and his future in cricket. Tiwary famously hit the winning boundary for the Kolkata Knight Riders as they won their maiden IPL trophy in 2012. In a surprising turn of events, the former Bengal captain was not picked up by any franchise in the 2019 IPL Auction and subsequently missed out on the tournament.

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Manoj Tiwary: I have another 10 years left in my career

The 34-year-old talked about his future in cricket and boldly proclaimed that he will be playing the game for another 10 years. He referred to the careers of veterans like Wasim Jaffer (who recently played his 150th Ranji Trophy game) and Zaheer Khan (who recently played the Abu Dhabi T10 League). Tiwary also referred to NBA superstar LeBron James and talked about how James is 34 but no one is questioning his longevity yet. The cricketer insisted that he is looking to play more and has planned his career in brackets of 3-4 years.

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Manoj Tiwary speaks on the IPL

Manoj Tiwary struggled to be a consistent figure in the Indian team due to multiple reasons but the IPL helped him stay relevant in the world of cricket. He had some great seasons for the Kolkata Knight Riders, even hitting the championship-winning boundary for them in 2012. Tiwary has also played for the Delhi Capitals and the Rising Pune Supergiant (helping them get to the 2017 finals). His last season was with the Kings XI Punjab in 2018 before he went unsold in the 2019 season. The Bengal cricketer talked about how he felt underutilised at Kings XI because of the team heavily investing in opening batsmen.

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Tiwary emphasised on giving more importance to bowling than ever before for being a bigger asset to teams. Talking about being unsold, the all-rounder expressed how he felt that his safe approach to the game and thinking about the team may have kept him from being a major commodity in the IPL. Without any disrespect intended, Tiwary explained his point by referring to players who do not contribute too much but show a lot of promise. He elaborated on how their high strike-rates get them a lot of interest from the IPL sides. Tiwary is a part of the 2020 IPL Auction, to be held on December 19, for a base price of Rs. 50 lakh.

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