Zampa hangs in there to help turn Australia's fortunes

Every legspinner bowls the odd long-hop. It's an occupational hazard. Some long-hops, though, come about at moments so inopportune, and get hit with such disdain, that the combined audience seems to let out a collective groan that's heard around the world.

Adam Zampa bowled one such long-hop on Monday afternoon in Lucknow. It was the rankest of drag-downs, and Pathum Nissanka swatted it so far in front of square that it was less a pull than a crosscourt forehand. It was the first ball Zampa bowled in this match, and the boundary that accrued took Sri Lanka's score to 74 for no loss in 13.1 overs. Two balls later, Zampa offered Nissanka another gift, a half-volley, and got drilled straight down the ground for another four.

Both teams had come into this game having lost their first two outings of the World Cup, and at this point Sri Lanka seemed far likelier than Australia to break their duck. Australia's fast bowlers had made an indifferent start, and their wristspinner was now bleeding runs.

Zampa had come into this game with figures of 1 for 123 from the 18 overs he had bowled across the defeats to India and South Africa. He had already been struggling with hip, neck and shoulder niggles, and in the lead-up to this game had suffered a back spasm as well.

That deadly cocktail of form and fitness may have led other teams to bench Zampa and pick another spinner, but Australia had no other spinner to turn to. Here he was, therefore, feeling - as he put it at his post-match press conference - "like adrenaline was going to get me through and a bit of Panadeine Forte."

Five balls into his fourth over, Zampa may have wished he had failed the fitness test he went through before the match. He had conceded four fours in 23 balls, and his tournament figures read 1 for 152 in 21.5 overs. Sri Lanka were 165 for 2.

Zampa now bowled the sort of ball, and took the sort of wicket, that makes legspinners so valuable in ODI cricket. It wasn't any of the classic legspinner dismissals, and the batter contributed significantly to his own downfall, but it was, nonetheless, a brave and skillful bit of bowling. Zampa dangled it up, landed it within the hitting arc of Kusal Mendis, and challenged the leading six-hitter of this World Cup to hit him against the turn, from outside off stump, and clear one of the longer square boundaries you will see on an Indian ground, patrolled by one of the world's quickest and safest outfielders.

It would be easy to isolate Mendis' dismissal and question his shot selection, but that would miss the point. Every six is the result of risk-taking. Each of Mendis' 14 sixes at this World Cup had come about because he was willing to take a chance; you need to do that to score as quickly as he has done in this tournament, against international-quality bowlers.

Zampa was asking Mendis to take another risk, heightened by the legspinner's stock weapons of dip and bounce. Mendis took on the slog-sweep, failed to control it, and became the victim of an outstanding running, sliding, tumbling catch from David Warner.

Sri Lanka's best batter was gone, and life, for both Zampa and Australia, had taken on a warmer, cozier aspect.

Over his next three overs, Zampa would strike three more times, and these three wickets would showcase not just the general threat of white-ball legspin but this legspinner's particular threat as well. At his best, Zampa attacks the stumps as well as anyone else in world cricket, and does it at high pace while bringing both edges in play. These last three wickets - lbw, lbw, lbw - were something like Zampa at his best: a front-of-the-hand slider to Sadeera Samarawickrama and wrong'uns to Chamika Karunaratne and Maheesh Theekshana, all zipping past the inside edge to strike the front pads of batters looking to defend.

"Yes and no," Zampa said, when asked if the wrong'un was, for him, a barometer of his form and confidence. "I mean, tailenders come out, it's kind of my wicket-taking option. So yeah, I do. It's kind of something that I go back to in my head if I feel like I'm not in the game. I go, 'right, how can I get a wicket and how can I get myself bowling better, more energy? Can I try a little bit more, put the batsman under the pump, roll in sliders or whatever it is?' I guess if that's coming out well, I feel like I've got the confidence to bowl wherever I want it."

Together, Zampa and Australia were experiencing a resurgence few would have expected when he began his day's work with that long-hop. A team that had looked tired and bereft of inspiration was humming with energy. Pat Cummins made a flashing bail take off and reach the height of a three-storey building with a vicious in-ducker to Kusal Perera. Cummins sent Dunith Wellalage on his way with a direct hit from mid-off. Mitchell Starc burst through Lahiru Kumara with a reverse-swinging yorker. There was a brief rain break, and a dust storm that ripped bits of the World-Cup-branded cladding off the roofs of the stands and sent spectators scurrying for cover. From 125 for no loss, Sri Lanka slumped to 209 all out.

In the middle of all this, Zampa was beginning to find rhythm too - belatedly, and he was under no illusions about what had come before.

"It took me a lot longer than I wanted to get into the game today," he said. "Bowling to set batters as well, trying to build some pressure, I just wasn't really able to do that. I won't make any excuses. I think I should be good enough to kind of play that role as well.

"But yeah, just it's taking me a lot longer to get into the game than I would have liked. And then I thought Cummins' spell in particular was a bit of a game changer for us and even his energy in the field, the run-out after the rain break, yeah, it changed the energy for us. And then once I was able to get a couple, we got on a bit of a roll and the energy changed in the group. So yeah, we needed that one."

This wasn't the perfect game for either Zampa or Australia, but they will both have tasted that particular flavour of satisfaction that comes from hanging in when you're not at your best and getting the job done.