It is the phenomenal powerplay performance from Josh Hazlewood that rocked India at the MCG and must have scared the daylights out of any English fans who happened to tune into the sellout T20 clash on Friday night.
With just under three weeks until the first Test in Perth, the veteran paceman delivered a dynamite spell to demonstrate he is in superb form and at the peak of his rhythm leading into the Ashes.
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While white ball exploits do not always translate into red ball brilliance, Hazlewood is a wildly successful bowler in all three formats and has never struggled to make the transition, which spells trouble for England.
Hazlewood, who missed two Tests last summer through injury, will finalise his preparation for the first Test in Perth in a Sheffield Shield game against Victoria next week and declared he is feeling primed to perform.
“I think you learn as you go. (Jimmy) Anderson and (Stuart) Broad played for a long time (and) I’m not saying I’m going to be around that long, but the body feels as good as it ever has,” he said.
“Whenever I’m up and going, and I know probably gym programs and things are more tailor made to the individual now and more specific, so for longevity, it’s always improving. It’s not going to get worse.
“So all the little things add up, and hopefully we keep ticking those off through the summer and stay on the Park.”
Throughout three ODIs and now two T20s against India over the past fortnight, Hazlewood has been the standout performer with the ball by a significant margin, with his penetration on point and his pace and accuracy troubling the tourists all spring.
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But his performance on Friday night was the pick of the season to date, with the 34-year-old snaring 3-13 in four overs, including the wicket of Indian champion Shubman Gill in a devastating spell.
It is not simply the relentless line and length that Hazlewood hits. It is also the subtlety he possesses that allows him to deceive. There was no better demonstration of this than in his MCG masterclass on Friday as the sun set over the city.
Gill survived the first ball scare when successfully reviewing the umpire’s call, with the tracker showing the ball bouncing over the top of leg stump. But the reprieve was brief for the Indian captain.
Hazlewood was able to draw the star opener into a false shot in the following over, with Gill holing out to his Australian captain Mitch Marsh at mid-off when falling for five, temporarily silencing the bumper crowd in attendance.
While Abhishek Sharma was going ballistic at the other end, walloping Xavier Bartlett and Nathan Ellis to all parts of the famous ground, Hazlewood set about decimating the rest of the Indian top order.
In the Bendemeer Bullet’s third over, the penultimate in the powerplay, Hazlewood removed Indian captain Suryakumar Yadav for one and Tilak Varma for a second ball duck, with Aussie wicketkeeper Josh Inglis securing both catches.
“I feel like I’m bowling pretty well. I feel like some of the wickets have been helpful as well,” he said.
“It’s been early season and we have often played these games in late January, after the Test series, in years gone by. So I think now they are earlier, the wickets have got a little bit more in them, and we’ve seen lower scores from time to time. So that’s probably helpful as well.
“But yeah, the ball’s coming out really nice. I feel like I’m hitting a good length for white ball cricket, and again tonight, yeah, I just kept it pretty simple.”
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The miserly Hazlewood, who secured figures of 2-20 in Perth in the opening ODI, a luckless 0-29 in Adelaide and 1-23 at the SCG last Saturday night in the 50-over games, did go for a run a ball in the wintry conditions in Canberra on Wednesday.
But with a firmer grip on the white ball at the MCG, he was far too good for his rivals and was unlucky not to snare the wicket of Axar Patel in the fourth over when an edge sailed past the outstretched arms of a diving Inglis to race to the boundary.
It scarcely marred his figures, with Hazlewood giving the hosts the upper hand early against a rival that has only been beaten once in six prior T20 outings against Australia at the MCG.
Sharma, who batted superbly to score 68 before falling late in the Indian innings, said he was stunned by how well Hazlewood bowled and smiled when learning he would not feature in the rest of the series as he looks towards the Ashes.
“Even I was surprised. I haven’t seen something like this in T20s. It was new to me,” he said.
“He is good enough to play all the formats but, still, I was enjoying this challenge. As a batter, you have to face the world class bowlers and that is what I wanted to do.”
Australia’s Josh Hazlewood (2nd R) celebrates with teammates after dismissing India’s Suryakumar Yadav during the second T20 international cricket match between Australia and India at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) in Melbourne on October 31, 2025. (Photo by William WEST / AFP)Source: AFP
Hazlewood is coming off a busy winter, having featured in the Australian tour of the Caribbean, but is hopeful keeping the body ticking along through the year rather than taking a prolonged break may prove the key to a healthy summer.
“Everything’s going swimmingly now (but) I think I can’t really say if it’s worked perfectly until probably after the summer,” he said.
“But if I get through everything, it’s probably the template moving forward, to keep putting myself in the best position to play as many games as possible, still resting the odd one here and there if it doesn’t sort of match up with travel or turnarounds and stuff like that.
“Over the next week, I’ll just probably get in the gym a couple of times. I don’t really need to bowl a hell of a lot.”