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Josh Hazlewood will join fellow Australia quick Mitchell Starc on the sidelines to start the tour of India with a left Achilles injury ruling him out of the series opener in Nagpur.
Another setback for Hazlewood is a major blow for Australia’s pace stocks with allrounder Cameron Green extremely unlikely to bowl if he plays in the first Test, starting on Thursday.
The injury to Hazlewood gives Victorian paceman Scott Boland a golden opportunity to play his first Test outside of Australia.
Uncapped West Australian speedster Lance Morris is the other fast bowler in the 18-man squad, but Australia might not play their customary three quicks in spin-friendly conditions.
“Scotty has bowled plenty at the MCG when it was a flat wicket, probably wasn’t swinging or reverse swinging so he knows how to work hard for a long period of time,” Hazlewood said at Australia’s training camp in Bangalore on Sunday.
“You’ve got Lance Morris who has worked hard on reverse swing for the last month and then a nice lead-in here with a few sessions.
“The guys are excited first of all to play in the subcontinent, they both haven’t yet, but they’re very well qualified to do so.”
Hazlewood has endured a frustrating last 18 months, after he missed four of the five Ashes Tests in 2021-22 and was injured early again in the most recent Australian summer.
He returned for the drawn New Year’s Test against South Africa in Sydney but admits the injury is still “lingering from then”.
“Just that extra load jumping off a soft ground to bowl and again first Test match (back from injury) your body is not used to that sort of workload as well,” Hazlewood said.
“I was bowling a fair bit leading into the (India) tour at home and sort of just pushing up against it.
“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 and hope it goes well.”
Starc is expected to be available for the second Test in Nagpur, but there is only three days in between the second match starting in Delhi.
It means Pat Cummins will have to shoulder much of the load in his first Test series of India as captain.
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