Australia leg-spinner for limited-overs formats Adam Zampa says an exhausting run in 2023 left him "completely drained" which led to him missing the Indian Premier League this year for Rajasthan Royals.
Zampa, who was a part of Australia's 50-over World Cup winning campaign in India last year, pulled out of IPL-17 citing tiredness and exhaustion from playing cricket regularly.
"There are several reasons why the IPL wasn't for me this year. The most important one was the fact that it's a World Cup year and I'm completely drained from 2023," Zampa said on Willow Talk podcast.
"I did the full IPL last year. Obviously, the World Cup was three months in India as well. 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 said.
Zampa's pull out did deplete Rajasthan Royals to some extent in terms of overall firepower but the title winners in 2008 did not have to fret much over it, since they have Indian spinners Ravichandran Ashwin and Yuzvendra Chahal in their ranks.
The 32-year-old Zampa said having a young family as well as fighting for a spot in the Royals' playing XI also led to his decision of pulling out.
"It came down to my decision being I probably need to put my body and my mental health first. Then you throw other things into the equation as well, like the fact that I've got a young family," he said.
"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 going to be two games or four games or six games," he said.
"I kind of worked out that maybe just to rest, putting my family first, putting my body first, was better for me," Zampa added.
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