Josh Hazlewood, an Australian fast bowler for Royal Challengers Bangalore, is expected to miss his team’s first seven games while he recovers from an Achilles injury. The RCB camp is expected to welcome the Australian pacer, who is now in Australia, in mid-April. He won’t be available for selection until the third week of the month.
The IPL 2023 season of RCB is in jeopardy due to a number of injuries to its best players. Will Jacks was the first competitor to withdraw due to injury, and Josh Hazlewood and Rajat Patidar, last year’s breakout star, soon followed.
Josh Hazlewood has provided a timeline for his comeback to action after suffering an Achilles injury earlier this year and missing the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. The Australian pacer announced that he will leave for India on April 14 in preparation for the IPL 2023 and hopes to start playing by the third week of April.
“Everything is going as planned, so depending on how the next two weeks go, I’ll be arriving there on April 14th. The Age quoted Hazlewood as saying, “I probably won’t be exactly ready to go right then, but (after) another week in India to touch things up skill-wise, I should be ready to go hopefully.”
Josh Hazlewood I’ll probably just need to complete one or two sessions at maximum speed.
The renowned pacer said it is simpler to manage his workload in the shorter format of the game because a bowler only needs to be at his best for 20 or so deliveries, as opposed to ODIs and Tests. Hazlewood also said that although it would take time for his injury to recover, playing in the 16th IPL season will help him get ready for the Ashes later this year.
“With T20, you don’t need a lot of work. The process of picking up speed and pushing back in the lead-up is more like checking boxes. I’ll probably only need to complete one or two sessions at my maximum rate before I’m ready to play. Compared to Test and even one-day cricket, T20 is very different. It’s wonderful that you just need 20 balls at full speed because that’s quite close to a game.
The Achilles tendon is a bothersome one. Josh Hazlewood continued, “I’d have to be bowling to prepare for the Ashes, so it might as well be in a game of cricket. It’s a long process, but it thrives on a little labour.
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