Josh Hazlewood, Australian pacer admitted his admiration for emulating his icon pacer Glenn McGrath after triggering India’s extraordinary collapse to 36 all out on Day 3 of Adelaide Test.
Josh Hazlewood, who took five for eight as Australia got to an emphatic victory by eight wickets inside three days, exclaimed that he was still pinching himself on how Indian wickets fell in the first session of 1st Test on Saturday.
Josh Hazlewood Was Surprised As Indian Wickets Fell Quickly
Josh Hazlewood revealed that he was surprised and amazed at how Indian wickets fell like nine pins so quickly in the first session of Day 3 in Adelaide. Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins (4-21) gave Indian batsmen a hard time in a devastating spell of pace bowling as India suffered a dramatic collapse from being 9 for 1 to 36 all out and eventually lost the game on Friday.
Australia chased down the victory target of 90 runs without much hiccups losing only Matthew Wade (33) and Marnus Labuschagne (6) in the process to take a 1-0 lead in the series with 3 more tests to come in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.
“Still pinching myself (about how quickly the wickets fell). Little bit (smiles, asked if he emulated Glenn McGrath style of bowling today). I try to do that every time I bowl to be honest,” Josh Hazlewood said in the post-match presentation ceremony.
“We bowled a little bit fuller and straighter and there you go… all out for 36, good result. Ready to go from ball one makes a lot of difference, can go wrong if you take two three balls to warm up.”
“That one boundary early on for the batsman can make a difference. The wicket quickened up definitely. We bowled a touch fuller, gave the ball air to swing and got the results,” Hazlewood added.
India registered their lowest ever Test score of 36 after Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood ripped apart the in-depth batting as none managed to cross double-digit scores. The pacers shared 9 wickets between themselves as Australia won the 1st Test by 8 wickets despite trailing in 1st innings by 53 runs.
Josh Hazlewood Hopes That Next Test Matches Would Have More Grass
Josh Hazlewood hopes that upcoming Tests would have more grass than they saw in Adelaide while adding that the team is still adapting to the pink ball.
“Hope for a bit more grass on (for the rest of the series). We have got a blueprint from this game as to how we should go about it. Red ball is another change. We ticked a lot of boxes this game.”
“The difference at certain times of the day with the pink ball. Tough to bat in the night, during the day it’s kind of soft for the bowlers. but this pitch had a bit more grass than the previous series. So we are still learning and evolving with the pink ball,” Josh Hazlewood further said.
Australia now have the best results in day-night Tests winning all of their 8 matches played. Josh Hazlewood picked 200 Test wickets and his 5 wickets for 8 runs was the most economical 5-wicket haul by an Australian in 73 years. It was his 8th five-for in Test cricket. Pat Cummins also went past 150 Test wickets.