Josh Hazlewood
Josh Hazlewood. Image-Twitter.

The 32-year-old Australia National Cricket Team premier pacer Josh Hazlewood has been ruled out of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2023 opening clash against India National Cricket Team due to an Achilles injury on his left leg and he is also doubtful for the second Test match, as per Cricbuzz.

The Vidarbha Cricket Association Stadium, Jamtha, Nagpur will host the first Test from February 9 to 13, and the Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi will host the second Test from February 17 to 21.

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Josh Hazlewood suffered an Achilles injury on his left leg after bowling in the Sydney Test against South Africa last month. Australia are currently involved in a four-day training camp at the KSCA Ground in Alur and Hazlewood has not taken an active part in the camp in Alur.

The 32-year-old seamer is expected to have his first bowl in Nagpur on Tuesday, February 7. Meanwhile, the absence of Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc from the first Test has opened the door for the speedster Scott Boland to play his first overseas Test.

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“Not sure about the first Test. It’s still a few days away but it’s sneaking up pretty quickly. Second one is obviously straight after as well. So, we’ll play it by ear over the next week and next few days and hopefully Tuesday goes well,” Hazlewood said before Australia’s final session at the KSCA Stadium in the outskirts of Bangalore on Sunday (February 5).

“Just a bit of workload management at the moment. Just managing the Achilles. I was bowling a fair bit leading into the tour at home and sort of just pushing up against it. Probably wasn’t recovering as well as I would have liked between each session so thought we’d give it a few days here straight of the bat and try and get over the hump and have a bowl from Tuesday on (in Nagpur) and hope it goes well,” he added when asked about his lack of participation in the Alur sessions, as quoted by Cricbuzz.

The injury issues have led to Josh Hazlewood featuring only in 4 Test matches for Australia in the last two years. The pacer, meanwhile, expressed his disappointment over missing a lot of Tests and was hopeful of playing back-to-back Tests on the India tour.

“It’s still lingering from the (Sydney) Test match probably. We obviously bowled after a lot of rain and the jump-offs were quite soft, where we were taking off from and they ended up replacing them as well. It sort of worked to a degree. But just that extra load jumping off a soft ground to bowl and again first Test match. Your body is not used to that sort of workload as well.”

“It’s been frustrating playing one Test at a time. It always feels the hardest Test to play, the first one and they sort of get easier as they go and you get to the other side, the end of the series, it gets hard again. Hopefully I can string a couple together on this tour,” he said.

As fun as T20 is and as lucrative as it is, I find it still plays second fiddle to Test cricket – Josh Hazlewood

Earlier, Josh Hazlewood had talked about shifting his focus entirely to Test cricket for the next 12 months. Now, Hazlewood has said that he still has the same mindset to focus more on the longest format of the game. He also said that T20 cricket plays second fiddle to Test cricket.

It’s still the same mindset. It’s still about taking every game as it comes. It’s obviously a huge tour and a long tour as well. It’s four Tests. It’s not a two-Test series where you might push things to get up for it. Four Tests is a long time and the Ashes is there as well and there’s cricket all the time. It’s just about getting it right, you don’t want it lingering around for months on end. The Achilles is a hard one, being a tendon it’s couple of steps forward, one step back occasionally, which is how it goes for everyone when they’ve got this type of injury. Feels like it’s heading in the right direction,” he said.

“As fun as T20 is and as lucrative as it is, I find it still plays second fiddle to Test cricket. This series, Ashes series, home summers are what you play cricket for. I don’t think that will ever change,” he said.

“That’s the view I’ve always had. during Covid it was a bit different, it felt like you played home five Test matches and then didn’t’ play for a long time for a couple of years there. There was a big push to play all those games in a row. Whereas now, we’ve got some good depth as well, if you’re not quite right you can miss a Test and make sure you’re 100 per cent for the next one. It’s a team mentality and the quicks are a team within a team,” he said.

“That view will be taken into the Ashes, into this tour, the World Test Championship, the home summer, there’s so many Test matches coming up. it might be a little easier to get right for the second one onwards here,” he explained.

Josh Hazlewood further talked about the pacers Scott Boland and Lance Morris, who have never played in subcontinent conditions.

Scotty (Boland) has bowled plenty at the MCG when it was a flat wicket, it probably wasn’t swinging or reverse swinging so he knows how to work hard for a long period of time. You’ve got Lance Morris who has worked hard on reverse swing for the last month and then a nice lead in here with a few sessions. the guys are excited first of all to play in the subcontinent, they both haven’t yet, but they’re very well qualified to do so,” he explained.

“It was really good to play that Sydney Test beforehand just to focus in on what’s going to be important in this series. The wicket was obviously slow, it was dry, it was a bit abrasive, and we got reverse swing – great to have that coming into this tour,” he added.

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Sonanchal Gautam is the Assistant Content Manager at Cricketaddictor. He is a professional Wrestling and Hip-hop enthusiast.