IND vs AUS 2023: Injured Hazlewood set to miss first Test; in doubt for second

Australia’s gun fast bowler Josh Hazlewood has been ruled out of the first Test match against India and he is also in doubt for the second Test match of the Border-Gavaskar series. Hazlewood picked up a leg injury in the Sydney Test match against South Africa last month.

The veteran pacer hasn’t bowled in the training sessions of the team in Alur. This is a massive blow for the visitors as they are already without the services of Mitchell Starc, who is set to miss the first half of the series.

“Not sure about the first Test. It’s still a few days away but it’s sneaking up pretty quickly. The 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.

In fact, Hazlewood has struggled with injuries in the last couple of years as he has played only four Test matches in the previous two years. Hazlewood missed the second Test match against West Indies and then the two matches against South Africa due to a side strain injury. The right-arm pacer returned for the Sydney Test but injured his Achilles during the rain-affected encounter against the Proteas.

“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.

The first Test match between India and Australia will be played at Nagpur from February 9.