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Follow UsHere we go again, another day, another injury for Josh Hazlewood, with the New South Wales pacer being ruled out of the remainder of the India Test series due to recurrence of a right calf injury.
It isn’t the first time the 33-year-old has broken down mid-way through the series or missed a big game.
Here’s the list of all big clashes or series that Hazlewood has missed over the last few years:
Missed four Tests in the 2021/22 Ashes
Just one Test into the big Ashes series, Hazlewood broke down, which forced Australia into fielding Michael Neser and Jhye Richardson into playing the pink ball clash in Adelaide.
"Nothing too serious, but didn't want it to turn into a huge injury. The key is that we don't want to jeopardise him for the whole series. We'll take our time,” said Cummins at that time.
But as it turned out, Hazlewood didn’t recover as expected, which led to Australia handing a Baggy Green to Scott Boland at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). It started the Boland era, with the Victorian picking up 18 wickets @9.55 in the series.
Missed one Test in 2022 against West Indies
Yet again, the same pattern. One Test and then ruled out.
Hazlewood began the series against West Indies at home in Perth. But after a 22-over show in the second innings, the right-arm seamer was ruled out of the second Test in Adelaide with yet another ‘side strain’. That resulted in Hazlewood missing the start of the subsequent series against the Proteas.
Missed two Tests at home against South Africa in 2022/23
"I feel for Joshy, he's pretty understandably flat," Cummins told Channel 7.
"It's a low-level strain in his side. He was a little bit sore after the last Test match, had a bowl in the nets yesterday to prove his fitness and was a bit sorer than we'd all hoped."
The New South Wales pacer couldn’t recover in time to be part of Australia’s XI for the opening two Tests at home against South Africa in Brisbane and Melbourne, only to return for the Sydney Test, where he picked up five wickets across the two innings, bowling quite impressively.
Ruled out of the all-important 2023 India tour
While it was expected that Hazlewood would only miss the first Test in Nagpur, things went south of the hill for the pacer, whose trouble with injury continued.
"It's [the injury] still lingering from the [Sydney] Test match," Hazlewood said. "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.”
However, Hazlewood never returned and didn’t play a single Test in the entire series.
Out of the World Test Championship (WTC) 2023 final
"Josh was very, very close to being given the green light, but we are cognisant that our upcoming schedule [the WTC final quickly followed by five Ashes Tests] means this is not a one-off Test match of us,” Australia’s chief selector George Bailey said.
After picking up a side soreness in the 2023 Indian Premier League (IPL), Hazlewood was left out of Australia’s squad for the WTC 2023 final. As expected, Boland replaced him in the final and was one of the best bowlers in the clash, accounting for Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja.
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