Adam Zampa has become an unlikely barometer for much of this country’s sustained wet weather.
With Australia into a third successive La Nina, the national white-ball spinner has taken to putting cricket balls into water at training so he can replicate the wet conditions he is increasingly facing during matches.
“It feels like every time we’re at the SCG or in Sydney, we’re looking for rain to come because it always seems that way,” Zampa said as Australia prepares for the opening match of the Twenty20 World Cup against New Zealand.
“It’s all about preparation for me. There might be some rain around, there might even be some dew if we bowl second.
“So the way that I train I always have it in the back of my mind. I usually have a bucket or something to drop the ball into to prepare for that. It’s just all about getting ready.”
The middling news for Zampa is that Saturday evening’s Sydney forecast is an 80 per cent chance of between one and five millimetres of rainfall, which should not be enough to ruin the match.
Adam Zampa in action against the West Indies earlier this month.Credit:Getty Images
Not that Zampa is concerned about moisture in the pitch. The spinner believes it would work to his advantage.
“If there is some weather around and there’s a bit of juice in the wicket, it will help spin as well [as pace],” he said.
“We haven’t had a summer for a long time now where there has been so much sun that the wickets have been drying up to spin.”
The record rainfall has been compounded by playing most white ball games at night.
Adam Zampa celebrates a wicket against England in Canberra last week.Credit:Getty Images
“We play so much cricket now under lights and a lot of the places that we travel around the world, as soon as you bat first, bowl second, try and defend total, the dew really kicks in.
“We saw it last year in the World Cup. Basically, every time you bowl second in T20 cricket, you’re bowling with a wet ball. So, it’s really important to prepare for that.”
Zampa hasn’t played first class cricket since returning to NSW from South Australia three years ago and has a bowling average of 48 in the four-day format.
But his white-ball record is extraordinary. He is Australia’s leading wicket-taker in T20 cricket with 77, seven ahead of destructive left-arm paceman Mitchell Starc, has a bowling average of 22 and, significantly, is one of the very few regular bowlers with an economy rate under seven.
He was Australia’s leading bowler in last year’s T20 World Cup, when Australia won their first Twenty20 title, defeating New Zealand in the final.
Behind Zampa and Starc on the list of Australia’s T20 wicket takers are Josh Hazelwood and Pat Cummins.
