Australia suffered a major injury blow ahead of the Ashes 2021-22 first day-night Test in Adelaide after Josh Hazlewood was ruled out due to a side strain. Hazlewood had bowled only 14 overs in England’s second innings, with skipper Pat Cummins admitting his fellow bowler was “sore”.
Notably, Hazlewood suffered the strain while playing the first Test in which Australia registered a 9-wicket win over England at the Gabba. As per the reports, he was seen in casual clothes while taking a flight back from Brisbane to Sydney without any of his teammates around. Jhye Richardson is set to play his third Test and first since his debut series against Sri Lanka in early 2019 in Hazlewood’s absence.
“He’s a little bit sore. It was good he was able to come out today and bowl, and he got through a really good spell. But he’s a little bit sore so we’re just managing him through it’s a five-Test match summer and he’s a key for us, so we don’t want to blow him out on day two or three,” cricket.com.au quoted Australia captain Pat Cummins as saying.
“It’s nothing too serious, but I didn’t want it to turn into a huge injury. We don’t want to put him in jeopardy for the whole series, so we’ll take our time. There’s no plan yet he will sleep on it and we’ll see how he pulls up tomorrow. It was nothing scary enough to not bowl today, but still, just a little bit to make us want to manage him, which we kind of expected. We’ll keep managing it,” he added.
