Australian pacer Josh Hazlewood is looking forward to playing at least three Ashes Tests against England, with Scott Boland having made a tremendous impact in Australia's thumping 209-run win over India in the final of the World Test Championship at The Oval, taking a total of five wickets in the title clash, including the prized scalp of star batter Virat Kohli, which turned the game in Aussies' favour. The Ashes series against England will start from June 16 onwards with the first Test at Edgbaston. In the series, history could repeat itself as the one out of Hazlewood (222 Test wickets at an average of 25.83), Mitchell Starc (310 wickets at an average of 27.64) or Scott Boland (33 wickets at an average of 14.57) will have to miss out on the playing XI for the first Test. Hazlewood himself accepts that playing the entire series would be difficult due to his recent injuries, but he does not want to settle for anything less than three matches, as per ESPNCricinfo. Hazlewood and Starc did not make it to the starting playing XI four years back which featured James Pattinson, Peter Siddle and Pat Cummins. Hazlewood played four games later, taking 20 wickets at an average of 21.85 to help Australia draw the series in England by 2-2 and retain the urn.
Australia are blessed with depth in their seam-bowling ranks that has been bolstered by the emergence of Boland as well as Cameron Green, the seam-bowling all-rounder. That means in a tightly packed series of five Tests, they can rest and rotate their bowlers and put out a fairly fresh attack for each of the games. Hazlewood may not be a certain starter himself but boasts an excellent record in England where he has taken 36 wickets at 23.58."I think when you have that depth for each game you [can] really go as hard as you can and then reassess after the game because you always have someone of high quality sitting on the pine and ready to go. So it's a great position to be in for the team," he said. "Potentially if you [have] back-to-back Tests and you bowl 50 overs and you've someone [like] Boland, Starc or myself on the bench, fresh and ready to go for the next Test, it makes those conversations a little bit easier. The guys are a little bit more open to it to create that longevity. Perhaps the all-format guys are more open to it than others."Hazlewood, who has endured bad luck with injuries over the last six months and even had to return home from the India tour and the ensuing IPL, said he was not desperate to make a statement as he had been on his previous comeback, the New Year's Test in Sydney, where he picked up the achilles injury. Counter-intuitive though it may sound, the competition in the bowling ranks will only end up prolonging careers, he opined. "You might miss one or two games with a niggle rather than pushing it and missing three or four months.
