Ashes 2023: "He Is Kind Of In Uncharted Territory..." - Pat Cummins On Josh Hazlewood's Place For The Third Test

Australian captain Pat Cummins revealed that the team management is considering making a change to the playing XI for the upcoming Test match in the Ashes series. Pat Cummins hinted at the possibility of resting Josh Hazlewood and bringing in Scott Boland as his replacement.

Josh Hazlewood has missed the majority of Test matches in recent years. The right-arm pacer was ruled out of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) series and the World Test Championship (WTC). He picked up 8 wickets with an average of 32.50 in the first two matches of the Ashes series.

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Speaking ahead of the third Test, Pat Cummins addressed the workload concerns of Josh Hazlewood and said that they didn’t want to add an extra load on him.

“He would be the obvious one you’d be a bit more careful of. The tour so far for him has gone as well as he could have hoped – no injuries, but he is kind of in uncharted territory for the last year or two. I think there will be some conversation around that,” Cummins said.

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“I think he bowled (about) 25 and 35 (overs in the two Ashes Tests) which isn’t extreme numbers, but again you weigh up this game versus the last two, how he’s tracking so we’ll work through that … you don’t want to put anyone in higher risk than you’d like knowing that there’s a couple of fresh guys on the bench that can come straight in,” he added.

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Scotty Would Be The Obvious One – Pat Cummins

The 30-year-old stated that Scott Boland is a strong contender to replace Josh Hazlewood in the starting XI for the upcoming game.

“We are super confident with either Scotty or ‘Nes’ (Neser) that’d they do a super job … we’d have to have a look at the wicket but think Scotty would be the obvious one,” he continued.

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We Haven’t Got The Best Of Conditions – Pat Cummins

Pat Cummins expressed his confidence in Scott Boland’s abilities and said that he would excel in more favourable playing conditions.

“Even between innings, he made some adjustments. With Scotty, we have such high standards of him because of how well he bowled (to start his Test career).”

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“You saw in that little stretch where conditions were in our favour how damaging he could be. You could argue we haven’t got the best of conditions this tour so far,” he concluded.

Australia will take on England in the third match of the Ashes 2023 series at Headingley, Leeds, starting on Thursday, July 6.

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