Josh Hazlewood missed the first Test of the 2019 Ashes in Birmingham off the back of an injury layoff. Due to caution about his buildup, he was held back in favour of a bowler who was a bit slower, a bit less glamorous, but would hit the seam all day with nagging accuracy.
In 2023 it might be the same story. Swap Peter Siddle for Scott Boland this time around, and Hazlewood is again wondering whether he can make his way into the team, this time after conservative treatment of some soreness in his side ruled him out of the World Test Championship final.
“I think if it was a one-off I probably could have played that game,” he says of the showpiece clash with India at the Oval last week. “With what’s coming up now, it just would have been too big of a risk.”
It is worth remembering that peak Hazlewood is a fast-bowling beast. With an arm position upright as a mainmast he hits the pitch from a great height, but still produces subtlety in seam or swing. Remember the brief shiver of movement that he employed to start the fifth day at Adelaide in 2017. England resumed on that morning with Joe Root and Chris Woakes together and hopes of chasing a target. Minutes later both had feathered catches behind.
But a frustrating run with injury, including multiple recurrences of a side strain, has kept Hazlewood to four Tests in the past two and a half years, meaning that with Edgbaston looming he is again not the automatic pick that he has been at other times in his career. His 222 wickets from 59 Tests look like an automatic statistical pick over Boland’s 33 from eight, but Boland’s career bloom and his decisive work in the WTC final don’t make it that simple.
“I think Scotty’s everyone’s favourite at the moment,” Hazlewood, 32, says with a smile, flagging a pragmatic approach to how many Tests he hoped to play this season. “If we go back a few years, I would have said all six. But I guess it’s a little bit different now, based on the last two years of history. I think three would be a nice pass, and four is probably a tick. Any more than that is great, any less then I am probably a little disappointed again.”
Whatever his inherent quality, it would be a huge selection call to play Hazlewood on the back of no match practice in a game as important as an Ashes opener, instead of choosing the same attack that bowled so well against India and got better as the match went on. The flip side of that argument is that the same lack of match fitness will apply before every Test thereafter, and that the only way to get him ready to play is to play him.
But if Hazlewood, Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc are still Australia’s principal three fast bowlers, then it might not be a smart move to throw all three into the same match to begin with. Cummins and Starc played the WTC final and it’s unlikely that both can make it through six Tests in eight weeks as this tour demands. Beyond Boland with his eight caps, Michael Neser has every chance to be called upon for his third. Spacing out the use of the most experienced quicks would leave Hazlewood able to bring seniority into the team when an equivalent drops out.
It’s not what Hazlewood would prefer, but introducing him in the second Test at Lord’s in 2019 worked well. He used the sloped pitch to his advantage, built his way into the series after that, and by the fourth Test in Manchester he was Australia’s most significant bowler in closing out that match that retained the Ashes.
“No doubt you still want to play every game and it’s hard to sit on the sidelines and watch,” he says. “But potentially if you bowl back-to-back Tests and you bowl 50 overs and you’ve got some of Boland, Starc or myself on the bench, fresh, ready to go ready for the next Test, I think it makes those conversations a little bit easier, and the guys are more open to it to create that longevity.”
Or there’s the other option of picking all your marquee players and letting them rip. The first match of a long series is the best one to win, letting you run the table from there. Discarding long-term planning and playing full-tilt, thinking only of the moment? It’s a cricket philosophy that could catch on.
