IND vs AUS: Josh Hazlewood to miss the 1st Test

Josh Hazlewood is likely to miss the first half of the Test series after failing to recover from an Achilles injury on his left leg sustained while bowling in the Sydney Test last month.

Apart from assisting his teammates with their training, Hazlewood has not participated in Australia’s pre-series camp in Alur. While it appears he will miss the first Test, allowing Scott Boland to play his first overseas Test, his availability for the second Test in Delhi is also in doubt due to the short turnaround between matches. Australia is already missing Mitchell Starc for the first few games of the series.

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“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 said before Australia’s final session at the KSCA Stadium in the outskirts of Bangalore on Sunday (February 5).

“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 when asked about his lack of participation in the Alur sessions.