Australia's star leg-spinner Adam Zampa has cited workload management as the major reason that forced him to opt out of the 17th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL).
While speaking on the Willow Talk podcast, Zampa revealed that he "had the best intentions of trying to play the IPL against this year" but pulled out at the end with the ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2024 in vision.
Zampa had a few busy months leading into the IPL 2024. He played all 11 games for Australia during the course of the ODI World Cup 2023 and finished as their leading wicket-taker with 23 scalps.
He was only behind Mohammed Shami (24 wickets) in the overall wickets column and his contribution played a crucial role in Australia winning the marquee tournament.
Cricket Australia decided to rest him for the five-match T20I series in India which began three days after the World Cup final.
The right-arm leggie then represented Melbourne Renegades (MR) in eight games during the Big Bash League (BBL). After a decent break from international cricket, Zampa answered the call of duty with the white-ball home series against the West Indies and also represented the Kangaroos during their three-match T20I series against the Kiwis in New Zealand.
"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 said. "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."
Zampa played six games in a spin-heavy bowling attack of Rajasthan last year and grabbed eight wickets. With Yuzvendra Chahal and Ravichandran Ashwin still in the mix, Zampa shared that he wasn't really sure of the game time he was going to get in the 17th edition of the IPL.
"It came down to my decision being I probably need to put my body and my mental health first," he mentioned. "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.
"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."
