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.
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.
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With 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.
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.
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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.
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