His home season consisted of the BBL for Melbourne Renegades where he made eight appearances followed by the white-ball series against West Indies and New Zealand.
“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.”
“It came down to my decision being I probably need to put my body and my mental health first,” he said. “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.”
Zampa will be a key figure in Australia’s quest to unite all three men’s world titles at the T20 World Cup having taken the Test Championship and ODI crowns during 2023. Earlier this year, Mitchell Marsh, who is set to captain the side at the tournament, stressed how pivotal he was.
“Zamps is by far our most important bowler and probably our most important player in this team,” Marsh said after the West Indies series.
The initial World Cup squad needs to be named by May 1 but can be freely amended on May 25.