Australian leg-spinner Adam Zampa expressed how an intense streak of matches in 2023 left him feeling utterly depleted. This exhaustion ultimately led to his decision to skip participating in the Indian Premier League this year, where he was set to play for the Rajasthan Royals.
The Aussie cricketer expressed his openness to joining the lucrative league this season. Yet, he felt worn out from the non-stop cricket action he’s been in since last year. With the T20 World Cup looming in June, he felt it was crucial to take a breather and recharge both mentally and physically.
“There are several reasons why the IPL wasn’t for me this year. I think the most important one was the fact that it’s a World Cup year and I’m completely drained from 2023. I did the full IPL last year. Obviously, the World Cup was three months in India as well,” Zampa told the Willow Talk podcast.
“So I had the best intentions of trying to play the IPL again this year. But once push came to shove, I felt like I just couldn’t really offer the Rajasthan Royals the best version of myself and looking forward to the World Cup, that’s what’s more important to me, that’s for sure,” he further added.
Last season, Zampa was quite the standout for the Royals, securing eight wickets in six matches. Teaming up with seasoned Indian spinners like Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravichandran Ashwin, they formed quite the formidable trio. Zampa acknowledged that earning a spot in the playing XI wasn’t a given; that realization factored into his decision to skip the IPL.
“It came down to my decision being I probably need to put my body and my mental health first. Then you throw a lot of other things into the equation as well, like the fact that I’ve got a young family. It’s not easy to spend nine weeks in India in my situation where I’m fighting for my spot in the team as well. It’s not like I can say to myself, ‘well, that’s alright I’ve got 14 games to prepare for a World Cup’. I don’t know whether or not that’s actually going to be two games or four games or six games. So I kind of worked out that maybe just to rest, putting my family first, putting my body first, was better for me,” Zampa said.
“It’s not an easy decision because you’ve always got that voice in the back of your mind going, ‘pulling out of the IPL, what are people going to say? What happens the next time you want to go to the IPL? Do people kind of paint you with that brush?’. But I wasn’t too fussed about it once I made that decision, I knew it was the right one,” he added.
Rajasthan’s performance in the early stages of IPL 2024 has been impressive. They secured victories in four consecutive matches before facing their first loss of the season against Gujarat Titans on Wednesday, April 10th. Samson led side will be facing Punjab Kings on April 13 at Mullanpur cricket stadium.
