Josh Hazlewood is set to return home in what can be said as a huge blow to the touring Australian side. Australian team suffered their second loss in the four-Test Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2023 series as they were defeated by six wickets inside three days again in the second Test in Delhi.
Australia had started well by scoring 263 runs while batting first after winning the toss in Delhi with Usman Khawaja making 81 and Peter Handscomb making 72*. The Australian bowlers then had India 66/4 at one stage with the big guns Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara out on a duck in his 100th Test, and Shreyas Iyer all back in the pavilion.
But then Virat Kohli (44) and Ravindra Jadeja added 59 runs and then the Australian bowling was pummeled by Akshar Patel (74) and Ravichandran Ashwin’s (37) 114-run partnership for the 8th wicket as India made 262 runs.
Much was expected of Australia and they started well in their second innings scoring 61/1 at the end of the second day in around 10 overs. But on the third day, everything fell apart as Australian batters decided to sweep and reverse sweep everything by Indian spinners and fell like nine pins.
Ravindra Jadeja picked 7/42, his career-best figure and completed 10 wickets in the match as well. Australia could only manage to put up a target of 115 for India, which the hosts overhauled by losing 4 wickets only.
Josh Hazlewood To Rehab His Achilles Injury At Home In Sydney
After the second Test, it was revealed that captain Pat Cummins was coming back home due to a family emergency, but will rejoin the side in time for the third Test which will be played in Indore. However, coach Andrew McDonald also confirmed that pacer Josh Hazlewood will join Cummins on the flight back home.
Hazlewood already missed the first two Tests of the series due to a left Achilles niggle caused in part by damp run-ups at the SCG for last month’s Test against South Africa.
McDonald said that while Hazlewood has been ramping up his bowling at training in recent weeks but hasn’t been able to shake the injury and will instead continue his recovery at home in Sydney.
This will leave Australia to choose from Mitchell Starc, Cameron Green, and Lance Morris to partner Cummins in the Indore Test match, which is good news as Starc and Green missed the first two Tests as well.