Follow UsRajasthan Royal’s leg-spinner Adam Zampa pulled out of the 2024 Indian Premier League at the eleventh hour, putting the franchise in a little iffy. The leg-spinner has now revealed that he was “completely drained” from non-stop cricket in 2023, which forced him to pull out of the cash-rich competition.
"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," Zampa told the Willow Talk podcast. "I did the full IPL last year. Obviously, the World Cup was three months in India as well.
Zampa revealed that he had the intention to play the IPL, but considering his conditions, he would have massively struggled to put on his best display in the Royal’s pink.
"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."
There were a lot of factors that Zampa had to look at, with the Royals’ bowling unit not having a regular spot in the playing XI for the Australian leg-spinner. Last year, the 32-year-old only made six appearances for the Royals, with eight wickets under his name. But the possibility of Royals featuring the spin trio in the setup was always going to be a rarity.
"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 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."