The much-awaited Border-Gavaskar Trophy is just a few days away and Australia suffered a huge blow as Josh Hazlewood will not play the first Test that is set to take place from February 9 in Nagpur. The report further mentioned that he is doubtful for the second Test also. Hazlewood is still recuperating from an Achilles injury on his left leg that he sustained during Sydney Test against South Africa last month. Australia will also miss Mitchell Starc in the initial games of the series.
"Not sure about the first Test. It's still a few days away but it's sneaking up pretty quickly. 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 was quoted as saying on Sunday.
"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.
Hazlewood has been constantly fighting with injuries over the past two years and has only played four Tests in the time period. In the first Test against West Indies at home, Hazlewood was included in Australia's playing XI but then he failed to play the next three games due to a side strain.
"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," said Hazlewood.
Rohit Sharma-led Indian cricket team will be locking horns against Pat Cummins-led Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, set to begin from February 9th.
Squads:
India: Rohit Sharma (Captain), KL Rahul (vice-captain), Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer (injured and yet to recover), KS Bharat (wk), Ishan Kishan (wk), R. Ashwin, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohd. Shami, Mohd. Siraj, Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, Suryakumar Yadav. (Ravindra Jadeja's inclusion in the squad is subject to fitness report).
Australia: Pat Cummins (capt), Ashton Agar, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green (injured), Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Lance Morris, Todd Murphy, Matthew Renshaw, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc (injured), Mitchell Swepson, David Warner.