It was on brand for the most unknowable of Australia’s cricketers to quietly notch 300 Test wickets in a remote location, at a time when the country’s sports nuts are more concerned with which teams will make the finals of their preferred football code.
With minimal fuss, Josh Hazlewood saluted the Darwin locals on Saturday afternoon after becoming the final member of a bowling foursome to reach a milestone only five Australians not on the team sheet for this Test have achieved.
It is a laudable accomplishment for a fast bowler who has persevered through more setbacks than any of his peers. That he troubled a dogged Bangladesh batting unit on a turgid Marrara Stadium drop-in more so even than Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins is precisely why the Aussies have persisted with the 35-year-old.
Hazlewood finished with 6-89, his best Test return in a decade, and suggested he pulled up as well as he could have following 28 overs of toil. “I’m still standing,” he said at stumps with Australia trailing by 67. “It’s a pretty tough slog straight up.”
If it was not for his more visible fellow Test bowling stars, Hazlewood’s achievement might have been more widely anticipated. As it were, his Test return this week following a 12-month absence, as he sat five victims shy of 300, hardly rated a mention.
Not that Hazlewood is the sentimental type. “Cricket’s my job,” he said today when asked to reflect on his journey back to reprising his Test spot. “It’s my job to do rehab and try and get back fit.”
The Hazlewood enigma stretches beyond the field too.
The bowler is a conspicuous absence from any of the social media platforms his teammates feature on and profit from to various degrees. “I’m probably missing out on free stuff here and there,” he laughed while speaking on cricket.com.au’s Unplayable Podcast last week.
“But nah, it’s not worth the hassle.”
And there might help to explain the longevity of the 15-year, 77-Test veteran. One of his long-time New South Wales bowling partners, Trent Copeland, on Saturday gave a visceral insight into the perils of the path Hazlewood has ignored.
Reflecting on his own Test debut in Sri Lanka in 2011, Copeland told Channel Seven: “There was hundreds of DMs (direct messages) saying, ‘You’ve stolen the Baggy Green, you’re no good’.
“The comment section is just rife with what you’ve got to teach yourself is a very loud minority, not the world view or not how you should value yourself. But that’s not an easy thing to do.”
Hazlewood’s own kind of resilience has been displayed on his road to this Top End series.
Leading into last summer’s Ashes, the right-armer had been in the best form of any of the Aussie bowlers. He delivered dominant white-ball spells against South Africa, New Zealand and India – Abhishek Sharma could barely hide his wonder at a miserly Hazlewood spell in an MCG T20I in Ocotber – before injury struck during what was to be final Sheffield Shield tune-up before the England series.
A right hamstring blow turned into a separate concern in his flexor hallucis longus (FHL) tendon – which runs down the calf all the way to the big toe – that knocked him out of contention for the entire home Test season and ensuing T20 World Cup.
While he then sent down more than 50 overs as he helped his Indian Premier League franchise Royal Challengers Bengaluru to a second consecutive title, Hazlewood acknowledges the grind of bowling on three consecutive days, as he has done in the NT capital’s punishing heat, is a different challenge altogether.
“The more matches in a row you play, you sort of get better at those longer spells, longer time in the dirt,” he said. “I probably lacked a little bit of, I guess, bowling strength it felt towards the end of yesterday. But felt like I recovered pretty well and got the pace back up today.
“We do a lot of work in those last four or five weeks (before this Test) to get some miles in the legs, which I think probably helped us out there.”
Hazlewood remains one of the dressing room’s most influential voices – few would recall he actually captained an Australian ODI side featuring David Warner, Steve Smith, Travis Head, Mitch Marsh and Alex Carey at the SCG in November 2022 – but admits he spends little time obsessing about it when he’s not in it.
“I didn’t watch much at all, to be honest,” Hazlewood said on the Unplayable Podcast of last summer’s 4-1 Ashes series he missed. “You might catch the odd ball here and there on different screens around whatever you’re doing. I never really sat and watched it. I don’t really watch any game of cricket – I watch other sports on TV.”
Which suggests Hazlewood too might have been more invested in his Newcastle Knights’ finals-shaping NRL clash with Gold Coast tomorrow had he not been playing in a gripping Test against Bangladesh.
NRMA Insurance Bangladesh Test series
First Test: August 13-17, Marrara Stadium, Darwin, 10am (local)
Second Test: August 22-26, Great Barrier Reef Arena, Mackay, 10am (local)
Australia squad: Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Jake Weatherald, Beau Webster
Bangladesh squad (first Test): Najmul Hossain Shanto (c), Mehidy Hasan Miraz (vc), Soumya Sarkar, Shadman Islam, Tanzid Hasan Tamim, Mominul Haque, Mushfiqur Rahim, Litton Das, Amite Hasan, Jaker Ali, Taijul Islam, Taskin Ahmed, Hasan Mahmud, Syed Khaled Ahmed, Ebadot Hossain Chowdhury, Musfik Hasan
