Adam Zampa will be out of action from Royal Challengers Bangalore's (RCB) opening fixture in the IPL 2021 as the Australian leg-spinner is getting married.
RCB’s Director of Cricket, Mike Hesson, confirmed about Zampa’s wedding in a video posted on the official Twitter handle of the franchise.
RCB will begin their campaign in the tournament opener against defending champions Mumbai Indians at Chepauk on April 9.
"We won't have our full contingent of overseas players available for the first game. Adam Zampa is getting married. It's an important time for him and it's something that as a franchise we are aware of and we respect and we hope he has a great time. So when he joins us, once again he is going to be fresh and make a massive contribution to the rest of the tournament," Hesson said in the video.
"We have got eight good overseas options, we are making sure that we are firing and functioning for the entire tournament not just trying to push guys for the first game," he added.
Informing about Australian players and coach Simon Katich coming to India for the upcoming IPL, Hesson said: "Getting people out of Australia has been a challenge. Simon has been ready to go for a long time, it will be probably two days before he is able to jump on a plane and join us. The documentation has been a bit challenging."
RCB will kick-start their training camp on March 29. Hesson also revealed that star batsman AB de Villiers will arrive on March 28.
"We have got players arriving all the way through till April 1. Finn Allen will be playing in T20I in New Zealand on April 1 and then he will come the day after... ABD arrives on 28," he said.
Hesson also said: "It is very different than the last year where we had everybody together for a long period of time on the back of a period where the guys had not trained or played. So, this time it is different, we got players playing international cricket over here and overseas and domestic cricket up until a hand full of days ago. So, we had to prepare in slightly different ways."
After conducting the last season in UAE due to COVID-19 crisis, IPL returns to India. Six cities - Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Ahmedabad - will host the 60 matches of the competition this year with Ahmedabad staging the three play-offs and the final.
The schedule for the marquee tournament, which will culminate on May 30, has been outlined in such a way that no team gets to play in its home ground.
