Hazlewood racing clock to be ready for key Gabba battle

Josh Hazlewood has returned to the nets and is bowling at near best pace as he races the clock to return for Australia in the third Border-Gavaskar Trophy Series match in Brisbane next Saturday.

Hazlewood, 33, was on the sidelines as the Aussies thumped India in Adelaide, ruled out late and replaced by Scott Boland in the attacking squad.

The New South Welshman has made it very clear: He doesn’t want to miss out again.

He needs to jump through several hoops to be cleared by Cricket Australia’s medical team now, with the veteran bowler mainly required to prove he could manage the workload of two innings in attack; he pulled up a little lame with his side strain while bowling in Perth and that’s the biggest worry for the physios and management team right now.

Should he see the green lights – as mentioned, basically earned by wading through two bowling stint equivalents in training – then he’s every likelihood to replace Scott Boland (which is not a slight on the Victorian’s performance in Adelaide).

“It’ll be how I pull up in the 24 hours following, really,” Hazlewood said.

“It’s just that repetitive [bowling and] obviously, two spells makes a big difference.

“Cooling down pretty much fully and then going again in the same day, and the intensity has got to be right up there as well [to test it, so there were] a few boxes to tick.”

The sidelined bowler admitted he could “probably run the gauntlet” and play if it was the last Test of the summer schedule, but with several crucial matches still to come on the calendar – and the fact he’d be “in a pretty bad state” – the fitness team has done a lot more to make sure he works through the side strain.

“It’s caused me a lot of trouble over the last few years,” he continued, “but [I had a] perfect prep this year, and played the Shield game and ticked all that off. I was very happy [with] where I was and it still happened. So I was pretty annoyed there for a few days.”

“There were plenty of meetings and stuff from CA’s point of view, physios, doctors, all that stuff. [We’ve] come up with a few options… see if we can stop it from happening again.”