Leg-spinner Adam Zampa on Monday revealed that he has been suffering from back spasms for the past few days but that could not come in his way of putting in a match-winning performance against Sri Lanka in the World Cup. The 31-year-old Zampa was named Player of the Match after posting impressive figures of 8-1-47-4 as Australia recorded their first win of the ongoing tournament.
“To be honest, I wasn’t feeling great because I was having a bit of a back spasm. I was playing through it for the last few days. Today I felt better, today I bowled better,” Zampa said after the match.
“Personally I wasn’t at my best and in the last match I especially felt I could have done better. My job in this team is to take wickets in the middle order. I didn’t quite do that last match and the pressure put on the death bowlers.
“Today I felt better but nice to be on the winning side today. It took a while to get into the game, I just have to keep that wicket-taking attitude going, it doesn’t matter if I leak some runs. ” Australia had lost to India and South Africa in their first two matches and captain Pat Cummins was a happy man when his side ticked all the boxes against Sri Lanka.
“Yes, happy today. It was probably that nothing was said and it was just to do with two defeats… The energy on the field was nice to start with and everything else was flowing.
Sri Lanka were doing strongly at one point with openers Pathum Nissanka (61) and Kusal Perera (78) adding 125 runs in 22 overs, but they suffered a collapse, losing nine wickets for 53 runs.
“Again, they started very well, but the way all the bowlers came in, hit the wicket and did their job, it was a big effort. I can’t read these wickets. About 300 [would’ve been par] Maybe,” Cummins said.
“We’re not really bothered by outside noise. I hope so, all parts of the game came together at the end. We’re about halfway through the tournament and hope we can keep it up.” Sri Lanka captain Kusal Mendis admitted that the batting had let them down.
“Nissanka and Perera batted well. After that we struggled and got a low score. 290 or 300 would have been a good score. We couldn’t rotate the shot much,” he said.
“We have batted very well in the last two matches. Today the batters struggled. I am confident in my batting unit.
“I think Madushanka bowled very well. He gave us two early wickets. We can play better. I hope Matheesha can recover soon.”
Topics mentioned in this article
