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Australia's star spinner, Adam Zampa, pointed out "several reasons" for opting out of the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 season.
Zampa was due to join the Rajasthan Royals (RR) but decided to opt out of the cash-rich competition on the eve of the season opener. He was a crucial figure in Australia's World Cup 2023 triumph. He produced match-winning performances for the six-time champions while battling through injuries. Zampa featured in the Big Bash League for the Melbourne Renegades and made eight appearances. He then went on to take part in Australia's white-ball series against the West Indies and New Zealand. The 32-year-old revealed that he was "completely drained" after the conclusion of the ODI World Cup and felt he couldn't offer RR the best version of himself. "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 as quoted from cricket.com.au. "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. In IPL 2023, Zampa made six appearances for RR and clinched eight wickets. With RR already enjoying the services of star Indian spinners, Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravichandran Ashwin, Zampa wasn't sure about the game time he would get in the long campaign. "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. Zampa went on to state that he wasn't to "fussed" about the reaction he would receive from opting out of IPL 2024. "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. (ANI)
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