India's batters are letting out a sigh of relief after evergreen quick Josh Hazlewood left Australia's Twenty20 series to prepare for the Ashes.
After destroying India at the MCG on Friday night with a mesmerising spell of 3-13 from his four overs, Hazlewood will have a short break before lining up for NSW in the Sheffield Shield.
The 34-year-old, who has dealt with numerous injuries over the last few years, will be more important than ever to Australia's hopes of retaining the urn.
With captain Pat Cummins ruled out for at least the first Test - and likely longer - Hazlewood and fellow pace ace Mitchell Starc will be forced to carry more of the load than usual.
Starc and Hazlewood will play together in the Shield when they face the third member of the pace attack, Scott Boland, against Victoria starting on November 10.
Hazlewood believes his white-ball bowling is as good as it has ever been, and hopes to carry that form into playing England.
India's T20 blaster Abhishek Sharma agreed, smiling in relief when told Hazlewood would sit out the last three games of the series.
"I was watching him in the ODIs," Sharma said.
"Somehow we knew that he's going to give us this much difficulty.
"But the way he bowled, even I got surprised.
"I haven't seen something like this in T20s, that was something new for me as well."
Hazlewood said he felt in a "good place" after being restricted to just two of the five Tests last summer when Australia regained the Border-Gavaskar trophy.
"The intensity is obviously right up there, now it's probably just getting a bit of volume in the legs," Hazlewood said.
"Doing a lot of things off the field well, doing things on the field well, so I couldn't be happier with how it's going.
"I can't really say if it's worked perfectly until probably after the summer.
"If I get through everything, it's probably the template moving forward to put myself in the best position to play as many games as possible."
Hazlewood might not be the only Test star to make an early exit from the T20 series.
Travis Head, who won the Compton-Miller medal as the best player of the 2021-22 Ashes, is weighing up whether to play a Shield match for South Australia.
Australia's next T20 games are on Sunday in Hobart, with the final two in Gold Coast (Thursday) and Brisbane (Saturday).
With the next Shield round to finish on November 13, members of the red-ball squad will fly to Perth ahead of the first Test on November 21.
Cummins resumed bowling this week, but is unlikely to be available until the third Test in Brisbane, at the earliest.
Allrounder Cameron Green's return to bowling has not been straight-forward, but is planning on sending down some overs for Western Australia in their next Shield match.
Green played as a batter-only in the draw against South Australia this week, making a duck and 41.
