"There are several reasons why the IPL wasn't for me this year" - Adam Zampa

Veteran Australia spinner Adam Zampa opted out of IPL 2024 due to being “completely drained” from the last 12 months where he had played a lot of cricket and also he wants to keep his focus on June’s T20 World Cup.

However, Zampa was about to join Rajasthan Royals but withdrew on the eve of the season. He was there in the Royals’ previous campaign. He also played a key role in Australia’s ODI World Cup last year where he played with various injuries. He then briefly stayed for the beginning of the T20I series against India as well.

“I’m completely drained from 2023” – Adam Zampa

However, he also played in the BBL for Melbourne Renegades where he made eight appearances followed by the white-ball series against West Indies and New Zealand as well.

“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,” Adam Zampa told the Willow Talk podcast. “I did the full IPL last year. Obviously, the World Cup was three months in India as well.

“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 again added.

Adam Zampa, who played six games for Royals last season where he took eight wickets, also wasn’t sure how many games he would get this time considering the franchise have Indian spinners Yuzvendra Chahal and R Ashwin as well.

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Adam Zampa played key roles in Australia’s 3 title wins

“It came down to my decision being I probably need to put my body and my mental health first,” he said. “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,” he again shared.

“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,” Zampa stated.

However, Adam Zampa will be a key player in Australia’s all three men’s world title wins at the T20 World Cup, the Test Championship and the ODI World Cup as well. Notably, the initial World Cup squad needs to be announced by May 1 but can be freely amended on May 25 as well.