“I’ll always be honest about how I feel about certain competitions and I’m being 100% honest with you, I love this competition. I genuinely enjoy it. The Oval Invincibles - it’s a super privilege to play here.”
Adam Zampa does things his own way. As in a coffee bean-bothering, single malt swirling vegan who fills his few hours off the pitch as a globally in demand cricketer by appearing in adverts for Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) or yomping up the Himalayas. “I wore a few robes, found myself up there in the hills,” the 32-year-old memorably said of his downtime during last year’s 50-over World Cup in India.
Zampa has a sort of perennial gap-year-renaissance-man energy, he was an early adopter of the mullet comeback a few years ago and the dangly earrings, esoteric tattoos (more of which later) and eschewing of golf for more cultural and spiritual extra-curricular activities set him apart. In the pantheon of Australian male cricketers, Zampa is positively exotic.
He’s also very successful. His canny leg-spin and white-ball nous has seen him in demand in franchise cricket the world over and he’s been a star performer for his country, recently becoming Australia’s first man to 100 T20I wickets. Mitch Marsh, his captain in that format, describes him as Australia’s “most important player”.
Sitting in a sun-strewn south London, Zampa is also one of the relatively few A-list names taking part in this year’s men’s Hundred competition, the fourth iteration of which gets under way on Tuesday. He’s a big fan.
“I’m playing it for a reason. I love playing cricket in England. I love being in London and playing at the Oval, it’s a great atmosphere every single game and that obviously helps when you are making choices about these things”
The slightly different feel to the Hundred is one that appeals to him. “I think the subtle changes make it tactically a bit more interesting, when you first start playing in it you kind of think it’s going to be some alien format, that it’s going to be so hard to understand but it isn’t too far away from T20 cricket.
“The fact that it goes on for two and a half hours instead of three and a half to four, I think it obviously makes it friendly for fans and families. Personally, the shorter the game the better for me!”
Zampa is in the capital for the summer with his young family and will stay on for Australia’s white-ball tour in September. Staying near Clapham Common, an area of the capital much favoured by Antipodean expats, his fellow countryman Pat Cummins notably won’t be swelling their ranks. The Test captain cited his “load management strategy” for missing the five ODIs and three T20Is in England. Zampa on the other hand, who pulled out of this year’s IPL saying he felt “completely drained” after a fixture crammed 2023, is now approaching things differently.
“For me, now, it’s about trying to play every white-ball game for Australia. I’ve tried to make the conscious decision of not trying to chase too much franchise cricket in the past year. The Hundred has been the one on my radar.”
It’s a statement to gladden the heart of an ECB executive, especially coming 24 hours or so after Pat Cummins told ESPNCricinfo that “I hadn’t thought of the Hundred” when discussing his recent four-year Silicon Valley-influenced deal in the US for Major League Cricket’s San Francisco Unicorns.
Zampa is aware of the ongoing financial farrago surrounding the tournament and that for the next few weeks he’s playing in something of a shop window.
“I know there’s a lot of chat about the sale of it and making it a really good standard to potentially sell it for its highest possible price, that kind of stuff. That’s for the businessmen. In terms of my experience of it, it’s great.”
Zampa is no one’s stooge. He makes his choices and sticks to them. Whether refraining from singing his country’s national anthem before matches or describing golfers as “floggers” (golf being the pro-cricketer’s sacrosanct hobby of choice). In fact, his single-natured attitude has been honed over the past few years by something of an unlikely source – the Curb Your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld creator, Larry David.
“I’ve certainly drifted towards Larry, I reckon, ever since watching and rewatching ‘Curb’ I’ve basically created myself to be a little bit more like him.” Zampa has a tattoo of Larry David holding the two ICC World Cups he has won with the caption – “Pretty Good” – on his thigh. On channelling Larry more domestically he says “my wife probably rolls her eyes at me about four times a day”.
Appropriately enough, he’s not at all put off by some of the heat that surrounds the Hundred, for him it’s more a case of curb your scepticism.
“I understand that there’s obviously a bit of controversy but in terms of looking forward and thinking about what’s best for the game and trying to be innovative and all those things, it’s an opportunity for players to play a proper franchise game over here in England. I love the format. As with anything, there’s always going to be someone that has an issue.”
