Indore: Already down 0-2 in the Test series, Australia were Monday dealt further blow when fast bowler Josh Hazlewood was ruled out of the remaining two matches of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. It has happened as Josh Hazlewood has failed to recover from his left achilles injury.
Australia lost the first two Tests – in Nagpur and Delhi – inside three days. The last two matches will be played in Indore (March 1 to 5) and Ahmedabad (March 9 to 13).
Australia head coach Andrew McDonald confirmed that Hazlewood, who missed the Nagpur and Delhi Tests, will continue his rehabilitation in Sydney. The 32-year-old Hazlewood sustained the injury during his comeback Test against South Africa in Sydney. “Josh Hazlewood is out, he’ll be going home,” McDonald informed.
McDonald, however, is uncertain about David Warner’s status after the opener was hit on his elbow in the second Test and was subbed out of the match due a concussion.
“Warner’s still sore at the moment. We had a meeting just before discussing this. We’re in no rush to make any decisions at this point in time around Warner. Just seeing how that settles, how functional that is,” said McDonald.
“It will be basically how sore and how functional it is as to what decision we make with him and then the length of the injury. There’s some talk the length of injury could be anywhere between a week-plus depending how that settles down. There’s a bit of unknown there. I’ll leave that to the medical team and they’ll inform me once they know,” McDonald stated.
Travid Head came out to bat in Australia’s second innings in place of Warner in Delhi. McDonald said he will replace Warner if the veteran left-handed opener fails to recover on time.
“If Warner unavailable it would make perfect sense. We did discuss before coming over here that if we were to lose an opening batter that head would be one we’d look to put up there. We feel in the sub-continental conditions that he can get off to the fast starts which he showed,” Mcdonald stated.
The coach, however, said that all-rounder Cameron Green will be fit for Indore. “He was close. It’s about building confidence. He had the setback in Bangalore, a little setback batting in Bangalore where he had some jarring and there was a fair bit of discomfort in that finger. But now that is gone,” McDonald informed. “If he didn’t have that, I think Green would have played second Test,” he added.