Australia vs India Test match: Was rushing back Josh Hazlewood a mistake by the Aussies?

All those concerns around Josh Hazlewood’s fitness came to a head unfortunately at around 4.20pm local Brisbane time on Tuesday when he was officially ruled out of the third Test and the rest of the Border Gavaskar Trophy series. Could it have been avoided?

Josh Hazlewood finishes his final over before leaving the pitch with injury on Tuesday at the Gabba.

It was quite concerning when Josh Hazlewood didn’t take the field in the morning on Tuesday. It was even more concerning when Josh Hazlewood walked off the field after bowling a single over on Tuesday.

He’d only been on the field for around four overs prior to that anyway. It was gravely concerning when Josh Hazlewood was then spotted leaving the Gabba in a car for “scans”.

And all those concerns came to a head unfortunately at around 4.20pm local Brisbane time, when Josh Hazlewood was officially ruled out of the third Test and the rest of the Border Gavaskar Trophy series.

So were Australia in too much of a rush to bring Hazlewood back in? Or was it Hazlewood who was in too much of a rush to come back in? Either way, the outcome is that Josh Hazlewood’s Test summer has come to an agonisingly premature end. Along with Australia’s hopes of forcing a victory at the Gabba and taking a vital 2-1 lead before they head to Melbourne and Sydney.

This is not to say that the selectors and the team management would not have done all their due diligence before deciding to give the 33-year-old the nod back into the playing XI, after he’d missed the Test in Adelaide with a side strain. Or that the injury that he suffered at “training” on the fourth morning of the Test was purely because of him having been brought in prematurely.

Hazlewood had after all been given enough opportunities to prove his fitness before the final call was taken on his availability. He’d bowled two spells at the Adelaide Oval on what would have been day four of the second Test. He’d then got two days in Brisbane to further prove that he was ready, even being taken to the Allan Border Field, where he could utilise his full run-up.

Maybe Hazlewood was 100 per cent fit when he was cleared to regain his role as the new-ball operator alongside Mitchell Starc for the Gabba.

But it’s difficult not to draw correlations when you have a fast bowler suffering an injury after bowling only six overs in his comeback after having missed the previous Test. Even if a side strain and a calf strain aren’t or shouldn’t technically be related.

You can see from the Australian team’s perspective why they would have been desperate to have Hazlewood in the mix for Brisbane. To have the full complement of the future hall-of-fame fast bowlers together for the Gabba on a surface which they knew would favour them. This was their best chance to take the crucial lead before the Boxing Day Test, that India have won on the past two occasions, in 2018 and 2020. This was their best chance to strengthen the edge they seemed to have got over the Indian top-order after the pink-ball Test in Adelaide.

Pat Cummins leads his Australian team off the field at the end of day four at the Gabba after failing to enforce the follow on.

The question to be asked though is if they couldn’t have done it with Scott Boland, who to his credit had contributed largely to Australia’s convincing win under lights last week. If they couldn’t have trusted the Victorian to make the most of the Gabba surface in place of Hazlewood, like he had with the pink ball in Adelaide.
That would have given their first-choice metronome pick an extra 10 days to get his body even readier for the challenge on an MCG surface that in the past few years have been rather friendly for fast bowlers. But we’ll never know now.

You can also see from Hazlewood’s perspective why he would have been desperate to be back in the mix for Brisbane.

After having missed out on a large chunk of Test cricket between January 2021 and August 2023, when he played only three matches, he’s been keen to play every Test he can. And before breaking down at the end of the series opener in Perth, he’d played 10 Tests on the trot since that return at Edgbaston during last year’s Ashes.

I remember how disappointed he sounded while chatting with me on the SCG balcony for a radio interview in January 2023, his first comeback, about the time he’d been on the bench.

And how crestfallen he was a month later in Bengaluru when he realised his Test series in India was over before it started after an injury to his left leg.

So for Hazlewood to have probably pushed his case very hard for a Test comeback in Brisbane this week is highly likely. He had missed the two T20Is in Scotland with a calf strain this year.

And those in the know had spoken about the dependence on calf raises for someone recovering from an Achilles tendon injury, which is what Hazlewood had suffered prior to that.

You wonder if that had anything to do with the latest injury he’s picked up. You wonder if it could have been avoided. You also wonder about the impact it could have on the rest of the series and what lies ahead next year. For, he’ll sadly be doing just that, at least for the next few weeks.