Injured pace spearheads Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins bowled in the nets on Tuesday in a major boost for Australia ahead of the day-night second Ashes Test against England next week. Hazlewood had not been seen since tweaking his hamstring in a Sheffield Shield clash six days before the opening Test in Perth.
He missed that extraordinary game, which Australia won inside two days by eight wickets on Saturday, with Brendan Doggett taking his place.
Skipper Cummins was also absent with a lingering lower back injury, replaced by Scott Boland.
Local media posted pictures of both men training at Cricket NSW headquarters in Sydney during New South Wales’ Sheffield Shield match against Tasmania.
The choice of balls they used was telling, with Cummins steaming in with a pink ball and Hazlewood more reserved with a red one. While Hazlewood remains a major doubt for the Brisbane Test on December 4, Cummins said over the weekend he was “half a chance” after an impressive stint in the nets in Perth.
Australia coach Andrew McDonald told reporters no decisions would be made until closer to match day.
“I know that he’ll be available at some point during the series,” McDonald said of Hazlewood. “We’ve got a little bit of that early rehab to go through to formulate where he may plug into the series, but we expect him to take some part in the series.” He was more upbeat about Cummins. “There’s a lot of positives, but now it’s just really building that resilience within the soft tissue and making sure that we’re not putting him in harm’s way in terms of accelerating it too much,” he said. afp