Josh Hazlewood will not play a part in the entire Ashes series, with the star Australian fast bowler ruled out after suffering an Achilles setback while the door has been left open for a potential Usman Khawaja return.
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Hazlewood was initially ruled out of the first two Tests in the series after sustaining a hamstring injury in a Sheffield Shield match last month for NSW.
The 34-year-old was targeting a potential return in Adelaide and had even started bowling again, only for Cricket Australia (CA) to confirm a low-grade Achilles issue.
Still, CA added in a statement that Hazlewood was expected to “recommence running and bowling” this week, which opened the door for the towering quick to return at some point in the series.
Unfortunately for Hazlewood, the latest setback has proven enough to rule him out of the entire series with head coach Andrew McDonald confirming the news on Tuesday morning
McDonald told reporters that Hazlewood will instead focus on preparing for the T20 World Cup.
“I don’t think he will take part in the series now. It’s a totally separate injury. It’s somewhere lower in the calf to Achilles region.
“I don’t want to get into the medical terms, but that’ll be something that we’ll release with greater detail tomorrow when the squad is announced. But yeah, he will be out of the series, and his preparation will then shift towards the World Cup, which is an incredibly important campaign for us,” McDonald said.
“But unfortunately Josh won’t be a part of the Ashes. And yeah, really flat for him. He had a couple of setbacks that we didn’t see coming, and we thought he would play a huge part in the series. But yeah, really feel for him that he won’t get that opportunity.”
Australia is in a dominant position to retain the Ashes despite being without Hazlewood and Pat Cummins for the first two Tests of the series, although McDonald confirmed Cummins will be back as captain.
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McDonald said that Cummins had come through a match-like workload in training last week and was ready to play.
“This is something we’ve done with Pat before with longish layoffs, where we’ve put some time and effort into rebuilding hisbody,” said McDonald.
“He simulated pretty much what a match will look like out there with multiple spells. So we feel as though he’ll be as bestprepared as can be.” Mitchell Starc, who leads the bowling charts with 18 wickets in the first two Tests, had battled a leftside niggle at the Gabba but would be fit for Adelaide, said McDonald.
He will be joined by Nathan Lyon in returning to the Test side.
Lyon was sensationally left out of the eleven for the second Test with Australia instead electing for an all-out pace attack.
The veteran off-spinner said was “filthy” at his omission but will be welcomed back for Adelaide.
Brendan Doggett and Michael Neser are likely to make way.
There had been speculation Scott Boland could be rested for the third Test but McDonald put that notion to bed on Tuesday.
“In the pre-planning, which is something we do around the Test matches and work out where the stress points potentially will be,” he said.
“The gap between one and two and two and three was something we think we could manage, so it would be more than likely the best balanced and available attack for Adelaide.
“So yeah, we wouldn’t be thinking about that someone would need a rest there. It’s probably more so in Test match four and five.”
Meanwhile, McDonald also left the door open for Usman Khawaja to potentially return — even in the middle order — after being sidelined for the Brisbane Test with back spasms.
“The assumption is that he can only open,” McDonald said of Khawaja.
“So I think that he does have the flexibility. We like to think that all our batters have the flexibility to be able to perform anywhere in that order.
“So we’ve got a collective group of batters there, that as the series wears on, the opposition may create some different challenges for us. So we’re open to what it will look like for us moving forward. And we’ve got three Test matches to go.”
Should Khawaja be recalled it would likely be at the expense of Josh Inglis.
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