England’s T20 World Cup celebrations will come to an abrupt end in Adelaide on Thursday as Australia’s fast bowlers attempt to revitalise their careers and find form before the Test summer in the first of a three-match one-day series.
Josh Hazlewood is striving to regain his place in the Test team after struggling with injury and conditions last season, Mitchell Starc will attempt to revive his world-class reputation after being dumped from the T20 side, and Pat Cummins will lead Australia for the first time as official one-day captain.
While Starc was controversially axed for Australia’s last match, against Afghanistan, Hazlewood believes the big left-armer will take the new ball against England in the first one-day match at the Adelaide Oval on Thursday.
For a decade, Starc has been at his most dangerous when swinging the new white ball in to right-handers, but Hazlewood and Cummins shared the new ball during the T20 World Cup.
“I think they just put him [Starc] into that role based on some numbers up front [opening the bowling] that weren’t going his way for the last 12 months,” Hazlewood said. “We thought that with his extra pace and if he could bash the length with bouncers on the wicket, that’s the way we’re going to get some wickets in the middle [overs].
Josh Hazlewood in action during the T20 World Cup.Credit:Getty Images
“Certainly it worked in a few of the games against the Windies before the World Cup and then sort of didn’t quite work out in the World Cup. But I think we’ll see him take that new ball in the one-dayers and swing it back down the line.”
With no Sheffield Shield game to prepare for Test series against the West Indies and South Africa due to the clogged schedule, three 50-over matches in six days against England will serve as the step up in intensity before the Tests.
“Just the way the schedule is, it’s almost impossible to fit in [a Shield match] if you’re playing all the formats,” Hazlewood told the Herald and The Age.
“The one-dayers are a decent workload in themselves. Sure it might be nice, but we haven’t done it for a couple years now [because of Covid] so we’re probably used to it. We bowled India out for 36 in Adelaide [two seasons ago] in our first Test after not playing a Shield game.”
Hazlewood has played just two of Australia’s last 10 Tests, breaking down in Brisbane at the start of the Ashes last summer with a lingering side strain and then managing just one of three tests on the tour of Pakistan and neither in Sri Lanka because of unhelpful pitch conditions.
Josh Hazlewood expects Mitchell Starc to take the new ball in the one-day series against EnglandCredit:Getty Images
“[It was] obviously pretty disappointing, but I’m excited about the red-ball stuff for the Tests this summer,” Hazlewood said.
Less exciting was Australia’s flat performance during the T20 World Cup, when the defending champions failed to make the semi-finals.
“I’ve been thinking about the last week or so,” Hazlewood said. “It’s obviously very, very disappointing.”
“We only lost one game (to New Zealand) when you put it in focus, but it was obviously a pretty bad loss at the start and put us under the pump for the whole tournament.
“I think the way you get net run rate back in your favour is by bowling first then chasing a small total. We never got in that situation. We always had to bowl second and then if you’re chasing wickets can leak runs.
“But we never played our best cricket throughout the tournament at all. Maybe the added pressure of a home World Cup might have just tightened the boys up rather than everything flowing very freely.”
