When fully fit, Josh Hazlewood is one of the first bowlers in the world any captain would want to throw the ball to in any format.
But the problem is he hasn’t been able to shrug off the injury cloud which has hovered over him for the past two years and is casting a shadow over his chances of playing a meaningful role in Australia’s all-important tour of England.
With the World Test Championship and a five-match Ashes series jammed into an eight-week block from June 7 to August 1, one of the more curious selections in Australia’s recent squad announcement was naming just four fast bowlers in the 17-man squad, which will be revised after the second clash with England at Lord’s.
For context, they named five quicks – Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Scott Boland and Lance Morris – for the four-Test series in India earlier this year when seamers were mere bit players for the raging turners that were rolled out.
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Hazlewood didn’t bowl a ball in India and was sent home early after an Achilles problem flared up.
(Photo by James Worsfold/Getty Images)
He missed four of the six Tests of the home summer match-ups against the West Indies and South Africa due to a side strain after a similar injury restricted him to just one match the previous Australian summer during the 4-0 Ashes cakewalk.
Since Australia returned to the Test arena after the pandemic halted international cricket for much of 2020, he played all four matches at home against India that summer and has worn the baggy green just four more times in the past two years.
Including a couple of games in Pakistan and Sri Lanka when he was not selected due to the spin-friendly conditions, all up he has missed 15 matches after he was seemingly impervious to injury in racking up 55 Tests during his first seven years at international level.
There is no doubt about Hazlewood’s class or his suitability for the English conditions – he’s taken 38 wickets at 22.26 since bagging 20 at 21.85 in four matches of the 2019 Ashes tour triumph.
Hazlewood has consistently been ranked inside the ICC’s top 10 Test bowlers since 2015 but has fallen over the past 12 months to now be 15th and is in danger of tumbling out of the top 20 for the first time in nearly a decade.
He’s still the top-rated ODI exponent and third on the T20 rankings.
The 32-year-old NSW veteran made a return after a four-month layoff last week in the IPL, taking 2-15 to help Royal Challengers Bangalore to victory over Lucknow.
He was tonked for 1-29 from three overs for RCB on the weekend in a loss to Delhi and his fifth-placed team has four more regular-season fixtures on the horizon before a possible finals campaign in the last week of May.
As a three-format player, Hazlewood is unable to squeeze much, if any, red-ball cricket into his crowded calendar and that lack of a bowling load has led to injuries.
He came into the most recent home Test campaign on the back of the T20 World Cup and a couple of virtually worthless one-dayers against England and broke down after needing to bowl 43 overs across two innings on a benign Optus Stadium pitch.
The legendary Dennis Lillee loves to tell the story about the succinct “secret” behind becoming great at fast bowling. Hard work are two of the three words he uses to describe what’s required with an adjective thrown in the middle which varies depending on who he’s being informed of the big reveal.
Nobody can question Hazlewood’s dedication or call him brittle in any way shape or form but there inevitably comes a time when a fast bowler can’t shake off the aches and pains of cricket’s physically toughest discipline.
(Photo by Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images)
What were once niggles that younger quicks could carry through matches become problems that rule them out of games, series, seasons.
Glenn McGrath is the exception to the rule but look at many of Australia’s best seamers over the past few decades – once the injuries started mounting up for the likes of Craig McDermott, Merv Hughes, Jason Gillespie, Brett Lee, Mitchell Johnson, Ryan Harris, the end to their international careers were swift. Hughes never played another first-class game after his last Test against South Africa in 1994 as knee injuries.
Boland is, as always, the readymade replacement.
And it’s hardly panic stations for the Aussies when their fallback option is a guy who has bagged 28 wickets at 13.42 in his first seven Tests.
Australia will chop and change their touring party at the halfway point of their six-Test sojourn but it seems a matter of when, not if, they will add Queensland seamer Michael Neser to the mix.
The 33-year-old Sheffield Shield player of the year has shown in his two chances at Test level that he’s more than capable of cutting it at the highest level with seven wickets at 16.71 (even though the opposition was pre-Bazball England and the West Indies).
He’s going gangbusters for Glamorgan at county level albeit in the division two competition, taking a hat-trick last week on the way to figures of 7-32 in a tense draw with Yorkshire.
And it wasn’t against bunnies – former England batter Dawid Malan, and all-rounders George Hill and Dom Bess but the last two need someone to point out to them that the piece of willow they carry to the wicket is for use against the red leather missile that is hurled their way – particularly when you’re facing your first delivery.
The problem that will face Cummins and the selectors when they finalise their bowling line-up for the World Test Championship final at The Oval against India is that it will be a gamble either way when it comes time to make a decision on Hazlewood.
If they pick him, will his body be able to hold up to the demands of five-day cricket after a build-up centred around four-over spells in the IPL but if they leave him out, can they afford to have someone who’s taken 51 wickets in 15 Tests against India sitting in the pavilion?
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