Australia has been dealt a blow in their preparation for the high-octane Border Gavaskar series. With Mitchell Starc ruled out for the first two Test matches the Aussie pace arsenal will be without their frontline bowlers. Hazelwood has not recovered from an Achilles injury on his left leg which he picked up after bowling the Sydney Test last month.
Australia training camp in Alur dealt blow
Hazlewood didn't take an active part in Australia's training camp at Alur, where the team was seen taking extreme measures to combat the Indian spin arsenal of Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav.
Hazlewood's injury opens the door for Scott Boland to play his first overseas Test, his availability for the second Test in Delhi is also in doubt considering the short turnaround between matches.
"Not sure about the first Test. It's still a few days away but it's sneaking up pretty quickly. The 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.
Injury niggles continue
Hazlewood's injury niggles have hampered his playing time with the fast bowler having now played only four Tests in the last two years.
He played the opening Test of the recent home summer against West Indies in Perth before missing out the next three matches with a side strain. He then returned for the Sydney Test against South Africa. And it is during that rain-affected encounter that the 32-year-old paceman is believed to have injured his Achilles.
"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 like 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," he said.
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