Adam Zampa confident to play a role in Australia’s Champions Trophy campaign

Australia leg-spinner Adam Zampa is high on confidence and feels that he will be instrumental to his team’s outing in the Champions Trophy. Captain Steve Smith may feel tempted to commence the tournament with an all-out pace attack but the Zampa is of the opinion that the pitches will slow up towards the back end and favour spinners.

According to Zampa, Australia’s quicks are pleasing but he hopes to fit into the scene when the tournament draws to its end. The leggie led the ODI wicket-takers list for 2016 but had only a few chances in the starting XI in 2017. He is coming off a decent IPL season where he played for Smith’s Rising Pune Supergiant and was brought in the XI to replace the outgoing Imran Tahir.

Zampa expects slow wickets

On Thursday, Zampa told a press gathering: “I think the general feeling is that the wickets here will slow up in the back end of the tournament. I’m preparing for that, but I’m prepared to play every game. We’ve been selecting teams in the last 24 months (based) on the conditions and with the fire power we have with the ball, it’s always handy to have.”

He also added that Australia will most likely take the horses for courses route in the Champions Trophy, just the way they always have done.

“The way we’ve selected teams recently, it’s just the conditions. I think if the conditions suit, which hopefully they will for me, (I’ll play). You can see a lot of dry wickets in England as well so I think I can have a pretty big role to play in this tournament.”

The Aussies will be playing two practice matches ahead of the prestigious 50-overs tournament, locking horns with Sri Lanka on Friday at the Oval and then meet Pakistan on Sunday at Edgbaston.

They begin their tournament campaign against New Zealand on June 2, followed by games against Bangladesh and England on June 5 and June 10 respectively.