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The Australian hierarchy long has had a hunch about Josh Hazlewood. It’s why he was handed a one-day debut as a raw, unproven 19-year-old.
It’s why he was in Australia’s Test squad for the WACA Test against South Africa two years later, despite his inexperience and modest first-class record. It’s why he is playing in this Test ahead of other domestic pacemen with better statistics.
Hazlewood has been earmarked as a potential Test star since making his first-class debut as a 17-year-old for NSW against the touring New Zealand side six years ago.
FOLLOW LIVE CRICKET SCORES OF DAY THREE BETWEEN AUSTRALIA AND INDIA
Match figures of 4-76 from 29 overs opposed to the likes of Brendon McCullum and Ross Taylor suggested the Blues had been wise to punt on the schoolboy. A return of 5-68 in the first innings of this Test proves Australia’s selectors were similarly sage.
Hazlewood is tailor-made to bowl at the Gabba. With an easily repeatable action which delivers the ball seam-up from a lofty height, the 23-year-old can extract every skerrick of assistance from the flint-hard surface.
Comparisons with Australian pace legend Glenn McGrath have been readily made. Both players are of a similar height and pace, and offer the batsmen few chances to cut loose.
One significant difference between them though, is that Hazlewood gets a natural curve on his deliveries, whereas swing was a rare bonus for McGrath.
The young Australian is, in fact, more reminiscent of McGrath’s former teammate Stuart Clark. With 94 Test wickets at an average of 24, the late-blooming Clark was a revelation after making his debut as he approached 31 years of age.
Roughly the same height as both McGrath and Hazlewood, he also mirrored that pair by boasting an uncomplicated action and operating with religious accuracy and unsettling bounce.
Unlike McGrath, Clark’s action fostered a teasing arc. Many of his wickets were the result of batsmen ill-advisedly following one of his gentle outswingers.
He was not a swing bowler in the mould of England’s James Anderson or Tasmania’s Ben Hilfenhaus. Clark did not bend the ball to a startling degree. The New South Welshmen just got sufficient movement to kiss the edge of his opponent’s reaching blade.
Clark directed so many of his deliveries into dangerous areas, full on or just outside off, that such edges were a regular occurrence. He was not seduced by the disconcerting lift afforded by his towering frame – shorter length deliveries were either a changeup or a means of pushing back batsmen and setting them up for his stock fuller ball.
Hazlewood, by his own admission, early in his career lurched into the trap avoided by Clark. He concentrated on banging the ball into the deck, short of a length, in the belief that he was emulating his hero McGrath.
Then he came into contact with Australia’s highly successful pace bowling coach Craig McDermott. As he has done with all of Australia’s fast men, McDermott encouraged Hazlewood to focus on drawing the batsman forward. To his credit, the young man followed this advice and has become a more potent bowler as a result.
Ironically, Hazlewood’s first two Test wickets came from deliveries dug into the deck. The following three, however, could have been ripped straight from Clark’s highlights package.
Coaxing the batsman on to the front foot and prompting the ball to swing late away from the batsmen, Hazlewood earned three catches behind the wicket. First the in-form Ajinkya Rahane, then dangerous lower order strokemaker Ravi Ashwin, and finally belligerent gloveman MS Dhoni all succumbed to Hazlewood’s artful approach.
None of the deliveries hooped through the air dramatically. Rather, they did just enough, in the same manner of so many of Clark’s wicket taking balls.
Hazlewood is not in the business of manufacturing unplayable deliveries. Such a pursuit is fraught with pitfalls, as we’ve seen this Test with the occasionally mesmerising but often awful offerings of the mercurial Mitchell Starc.
When it comes to opponents, Hazlewood seeks to asphyxiate rather than obliterate.