Zampa seeks red ball tweak as India looms

Like all aspiring domestic cricketers currently residing outside Australia’s Test set-up, Adam Zampa has noted the shift in selection philosophy for next year’s tour to India. 

But before he can be considered under the ‘horses for courses’ approach endorsed by Cricket Australia’s Executive General Manager Team Performance Pat Howard this week, Zampa knows he has to first show some form on home tracks.

And in order to do that, he needs a couple of decent gallops in conditions that suit so that he can show selectors the big strides he’s taken in the white-ball ‘sprint’ events of late also hold him in good fettle for the game’s elite stayers’ format – the Test match. 

"We're most certainly going to end up with a horses-for-courses mentality … when we go to India (next February and March) the form in the sub-continent will be extremely important,” Howard said in the wake of Australia’s 3-0 Test loss to Sri Lanka, their latest failure in Asian conditions.

Zampa does have form on the subcontinent, as a part of Australia’s unsuccessful World T20 campaign earlier this year shortly after he made his ODI debut against New Zealand at Wellington.

And perhaps more famously his six-wicket haul during the subsequent Indian Premier League tournament when playing for the new Supergiants franchise based in Pune, where one of next year’s four Tests against India will be held. 

However, if Howard’s foreshadowing of a Test team made up of players who have shown a capacity to bowl spin or bat authoritatively against it in the sort of conditions India will doubtless dish up (after gleaning a tried-and-true recipe from their Sri Lankan neighbours) then the 24-year-old looms as a bolter.

Not only because he wasn’t part of the unofficial ‘Test’ component of the tour by an Australia A team - led by Usman Khawaja – made to Chennai last year.

But more saliently the fact that his first-class appearances for South Australia over the past year or more have been almost as fleeting, prompting observations in some quarters that his probing, quickish leg spin is not yet fully developed in the red-ball arena.

“I obviously want to play Test cricket, and I still think I’m a while off that,” Zampa said today as the Australians held their first training session at the sprawlingly rustic stadium carved into the surrounding jungle at Dambulla where the third ODI against Sri Lanka begins on Sunday.

“In saying that I’ve only played four first-class games in the last 12 months or so, so it would be nice to get some red ball cricket under my belt.

“But I just want to keep improving and I feel like the bowler I am now compared to 12 months or 18 months ago, I have improved.”

While Zampa has already defied conventional thinking by making his name as a leg spinner in the limited-overs game, the price he has paid for that success is reduced opportunity to push his first-class claims.

Despite being an important part of SA’s charge to last year’s Sheffield Shield Final, his selection for the three-match Chappell-Hadlee ODI Series in NZ from where he vaulted in the T20 set-up for subsequent tours to South Africa and India meant he was unavailable for pointy end of the first-class season.

With the pitch at Gliderol Stadium, where the Redbacks lost the Shield to Victoria, offering significant (if not quite subcontinental) encouragement to spinners as shown by Test tweaker Jon Holland’s match return of eight wickets.

But one of the key reasons behind SA reaching their first Shield Final in 20 years was the recurrent success of their seamers Chadd Sayers, Daniel Worrall and Joe Mennie, which meant Zampa’s time with ball in hand was limited even when he was available to play.

And with SA’s early season Shield matches scheduled at Adelaide Oval where the recent introduction of drop-in pitches has meant they no longer crack and crumble to aid spin bowling, Zampa finished the season with 10 wickets at more than 45 runs each.

The sort of return that might usually suggest a horse needs a spell.

Zampa recognises that the red-ball cards might not have always fallen to his advantage, but believes the education he has gained across all formats has been of far greater value than raw returns might indicate.

“I’ve always had a decent shot,” he said when asked if he needed greater opportunities to advance his case as a Test contender.

“It’s just the conditions didn’t really suit me (last) year.

“There was a couple of games where I bowled three overs or four overs the whole game and there was one at the MCG (against Victoria) on a green seamer where I only bowled two.

“So there was limited opportunity last year (but) it’s not a bad thing when all your quicks are getting the wickets.

“Hopefully some opportunities arise soon.”

There’s a good chance his first opportunity after the ODIs and subsequent T20 Internationals wind up in Sri Lanka will be Australia’s month-long ODI campaign in South Africa.

Which will give him barely 10 days back in Australia before the start of the next Shield season, with SA scheduled to take on Western Australia at the spinner-unfriendly WACA Ground in Perth.

Between now and the time the India touring party is chosen next January, Zampa will continue to seek out his spin bowling mentor Trent Woodhill who works with Zampa’s KFC Big Bash League franchise the Melbourne Stars.

Which also boasts strong links to their former skipper and legendary leg spinner Shane Warne, who had some tips for Zampa when he was but a teenager finding his way through the New South Wales system.

Quick Single: Warne hits out at 'bits and pieces' Aussies

Where Warne passed on advice that was largely about tactics and less about technicalities of wrist spin, but which Zampa savoured nonetheless. 

Warne would have been delighted with the younger leggie’s first wicket during Australia’s ODI loss to Sri Lanka last Wednesday, when he snared the home team’s young batting sensation Kusal Mendis with a textbook wrong-un.

“I actually hadn’t bowled one up until then in the whole series,” Zampa said of the googly that beat Mendis and trapped him lbw even though the 21-year-old had flown to 69 from as many balls and was threatening to take the game apart. 

“But to the right hander, sliding it in and attacking the stumps, I thought it was a good opportunity to try and get a wicket at that stage of the game.

“So I’m lucky it paid off.”

And maybe that’s the course Australia will need to be on when their Test team heads to India.

Image Id: http://www.cricket.com.au/~/media/unplayable-1