{"id":832273,"date":"2026-07-29T23:46:16","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T23:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/832273\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T23:46:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T23:46:16","slug":"australia-v-bangladesh-test-series-josh-hazlewood-details-the-fight-to-keep-his-test-career-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/832273\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia v Bangladesh Test series: Josh Hazlewood details the fight to keep his Test career alive"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Josh Hazlewood is prepared to share his Test spot with Scott Boland as he embarks upon a 12-month odyssey that will also provide a definite answer about whether his 35-year-old legs are still up to the task.<\/p>\n

Injuries have cruelled multiple summers for Hazlewood, most recently hamstring and Achilles problems that ended his hopes of taking part in the Ashes last season.<\/p>\n

\"JoshJosh Hazlewood shakes hands with Scott Boland after their Sheffield Shield match at the SCG last summer.Getty Images<\/p>\n

In his absence, Boland has been a superstar for Australia, leading selection chair George Bailey to speak of the Victorian as a genuine competitor with Hazlewood<\/a>, Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc to be first picked in the Test XI.<\/p>\n

This time round, Hazlewood has taken a leaf out of Glenn McGrath\u2019s book and kept his motor running since the Indian Premier League with consistent bowling spells. These include a recent spate of sessions in Brisbane where he and his fellow quicks have replicated the rigours of Tests, with multiple spells in a day over back-to-back days.<\/p>\n

Hazlewood admitted to this masthead that a preparation focused solely on Test cricket, with the top-line quicks missing from tours of Pakistan and Bangladesh and likely to also be rested during white-ball games against South Africa, Zimbabwe and England later this year, make the prospect of 21 Tests in 12 months more realistic.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Steve<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had the opportunity to focus purely on red-ball workloads and build-up,\u201d Hazlewood told this masthead. \u201cThat\u2019s the main thing, we haven\u2019t had a white-ball series or a T20 series or tournament, whereas in the past we\u2019re often coming off the back of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes it is helpful to get match practice, but this time we could really space and plan it to a tee and tick all those boxes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a little bit of luck to it. Some games you bowl 40 overs, others you bowl 25, so there\u2019s definitely luck involved in that regard. But we\u2019ve been doing these longer days up here where we bowl two spells \u2013 have a longer spell, cool down, maybe have a bat or a field [and] then come back later in the session to bowl another spell. Then back-to-back days as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked about the supposed rivalry with Boland, Hazlewood was frank in saying that all hands would be required on deck at various times, and he was comfortable with the idea that the workload would be shared at times.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll definitely take a squad effort over the next 18 months in particular, just from a quick bowling point of view, but a whole squad, extra batters, extra keepers, extra bowlers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year there was no Pat, no me and two or three guys stood up at different times. We had \u2018Doggy\u2019 [Brendan Doggett] there, [Michael] Neser, [and] Scotty. So, as well as you plan for different things, it\u2019s hardly ever that the same three quicks are fit to play.<\/p>\n

\"JoshJosh Hazlewood last played Test cricket in the Caribbean a year ago.AP<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019d be great if three can play quite a lot, and then you have another three ready to go, but it just doesn\u2019t happen these days. There\u2019s so much cricket. If we can get ahead of the curve and manage guys through this period, and have other guys there ready to pick up the slack, that\u2019s going to serve us pretty well in the long run.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hazlewood was extremely frustrated and initially emotional about succumbing to a hamstring strain while playing for NSW a matter of days before the first Ashes Test in Perth. That injury was compounded by an Achilles strain that ruled him out of the rest of the series, but Hazlewood never considered international retirement.<\/p>\n

Editor’s pick\"Cameron<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was frustrating, really,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was as good as I\u2019ve felt. Every time I\u2019ve been bowling the last five or six years I\u2019ve felt great until something goes wrong. [It was a] similar situation there. We bowled three days in a row in that Shield game. If it was two days, then a break, then another day, you probably get through and you\u2019re fine.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it was right towards the end of that game when I probably had one more spell to bowl. So it feels like you\u2019re really close a lot of the time. In a few of those Test matches as well, I\u2019m getting through the Test match then just having some muscle damage picked up on the scan after I\u2019ve tried to have a bowl again a few days later.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s happened a few times in Australian summers, but I feel like in the winters I\u2019ve got through the Test matches I\u2019ve had to play. Whether that\u2019s something different in Australia I\u2019m not too sure, but I feel like I\u2019m playing all winter then missing two months in summer, which is pretty annoying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hazlewood confirmed he had been approached to play in the Hundred this year<\/a>, despite the fact it clashed with the two Top-End Tests against Bangladesh next month. While adamant that Australian duty will continue to come first for him, Hazlewood said he struggled to see how he, Cummins and Starc could play much in the BBL unless the calendar was rapidly overhauled.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Brian<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cYou finish a Test series and probably the last thing you want to do as a quick is front up to bowl four overs in a BBL game a few days later,\u201d he said. \u201cAs much as we want to be a part of it, whether we change the timings or push BBL later, which probably doesn\u2019t suit school holidays, then you have smaller crowds.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the batters can definitely jump in and play off the back of a Test series, but if you\u2019ve played a hard-fought Test series and the bowlers have bowled a lot of overs, it\u2019s just a tough situation to be in, in terms of the scheduling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you often go on a Test tour, whether it\u2019s this year to India soon after. So it\u2019s the only little break we can get in that calendar. It\u2019s going to be tough, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"DanielDaniel Brettig<\/a> is The Age’s chief cricket writer and the author of several books on cricket.Connect via X<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":832274,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-832273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=832273"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832273\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/832274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}