World Cup 2023: Adam Zampa battled through injuries to make good on team's endorsement

World Cup 2023: Adam Zampa battled through injuries to make good on team's endorsement

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Nov 21, 2023 - 09:39
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World Cup 2023: Adam Zampa battled through injuries to make good on team's endorsement
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Adam Zampa was having a torrid time in South Africa in the five match ODI series in September. Just after taking four wickets in Bloemfontein, he had been thrashed for 113 runs. The spinner was thrashed for eight boundaries and nine sixes in that clash at Centurion. It was, at that time, the worst figures in men’s one-dayers’ history. Next match, he took three wickets but still went for 70 runs. Across the series, his economy rate would read a miserable 7.0.

Despite the shellacking, Adam Zampa would continue amid the adversity. Amid all the question marks that any player would have in the back of their minds going into a World Cup no less. Maybe more importantly, Australian cricket team and staff put their arms around the wrist spinner and backed him all the way.

And that brought dividends. Zampa finished the tournament with 23 wickets, equalling the most for a spinner in a single World Cup with Muttiah Muralitharan in 2007. He would fall just one wicket short of tournament’s highest wicket-taker Mohammad Shami.

The spinner had a challenging task in Ahmedabad with Australia bowling first against India in the final. For him, the magical ball is the one that skids through and straightens to beat the batter. The slow nature of the surface eliminated that possibility.

Instead, Zampa focused on doing what he does best otherwise — never giving up on the stumps. He targeted the three wickets, bowled slow on an already slow wicket, and forced the batters into going for shots. India were forced to retreat after losing early and important wickets. It meant no one went after the spinner and for seven overs he didn’t concede a single boundary.

Zampa’s contribution to the naked eye on Sunday is just one wicket, that of Jasprit Bumrah in the 45th over. A closer look and you notice he produced the joint-second-most dot balls from an Australian perspective.

“I look around at all the wristspinners around the world, from Kuldeep Yadav, Wanindu Hasaranga, Rashid Khan and all those guys — I probably look at myself and go out of all those bowlers, I’m the least skillful,” he recently said in an interview.

Zampa doesn’t have Rashid’s legbreak or Hasaranga’s googly. But what he does have is the fight, the willingness to keep going, keep fighting, whatever the result from the ball before.

His fight or flight response also became clear as he battled multiple injuries during the World Cup. In just the opening fortnight, Zampa cut his face open in a pool, struggled to breathe with back spasms, and suffered with crippling fever.

Zampa took 4/53 against Pakistan and almost didn’t play that day in Bengaluru. A combination of back spasm and virus meant he was on the brink of not taking the field. He recalled telling his wife “absolutely no chance” of playing as they woke up.

“I think we were meeting at 1.20pm and he was declared fit at 1.19pm,” coach Andrew McDonald said of their last-minute decision to put Zampa on the team sheet. “It was it was a great effort not only to get up for the game but then to underpin the bowling performance. He’s got a huge role to play going forward.”

Before the tournament started, there was a glute injury during the bilateral series with India. Struggling physically, he bowled 18 overs and was thrashed for 123 runs while reaping just one wicket.

Zampa, 31, the third best ODI bowler, prefers being in the quiet and peace of nature over golfing and hyper-macho world of competitive and elite sport. He spent time with his family in Dharamsala for a few days in the foothills of the Himalayas. It maybe proved decisive as he shut out the noise created by over 90,000 fans in Ahmedabad.

“The thought of spending time in Dharamshala in the hills and that Tibetan style of life was really nice,” Zampa said. “I had the family with me and we were staying up in the hills with a view of the Himalayas; it was an easy choice to want to spend a bit more time out there.

“And it was much-needed at the time because it’s been a long tour. It was great to have a few days just to unwind and decompress.”

As Zampa walked off with a World Cup trophy in tow, he did so in the knowledge that he did better than Shane Warne and Brag Hogg with most wickets for Australia in a World Cup.

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