Rajasthan Royals star Adam Zampa explained his reasons behind his withdrawal from the 2024 Indian Premier League (IPL).
Click here for more cricket news and updates.
Zampa explains reasons from pulling out of IPL 2024
The Australian spinner said the 2023 ODI World Cup left him “completely drained” after helping Australia claim the trophy.
Zampa, 32, added he could not give the “best version” of himself for the Royals.
“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 added.
Health first
Despite battling injuries, Zampa played a crucial role in Australia’s championship run in the World Cup.
Zampa also took part in Australia’s white-ball series against the West Indies and New Zealand.
He said that the decision not to join RR all boiled down to prioritizing his body and mental health.
“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,” he said.
“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 added.
Amid the backlash, Zampa said he made the right decision to pull out of IPL this season.
“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 said.
