Josh Hazlewood has been ruled out due to a bone stress injury. (Source: File)
Australia suffered a massive blow ahead of their tour to England after frontline seamer Josh Hazlewood was ruled out of the ODI series due to a bone stress injury. Hazlewood is the latest fast bowler to join Australia’s injury-list after Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc. Queensland pace bowler Michael Nesser will replace him. 28-year-old Nesser is one of the bright prospects of Sheffield Shield where he has taken 41 wickets in 38 List A matches.
Shedding light on the extent of Willamson’s injury Cricket Australia physiotherapist David Beakley said, “Josh has been managing some low-level bone stress in his lumbar spine for a short period.”
“He had a repeat scan today and although it has not progressed to a fracture he is starting to experience some lower back pain. As such, we are taking a conservative approach and he will not travel to England for the one-day series,” he added.
The injury will be a huge setback for Hazlewood who was also open to the role of vice-captaincy before the tour. “I think leadership comes pretty naturally to me. Even over the last couple of years, it’s become a very different team to when I started and I’ve become a leader pretty early on in my career,” cricket.com.au quoted Hazlewood, as saying.
Australia will play their first match against England on June 13. After the conclusion of the five-match ODI series, they will play only one T20I. From thereon, the Kangaroos fly to Zimbabwe for a T20I tri-series involving the hosts and Pakistan.
Australia ODI squad: Tim Paine (capt & wk), Aaron Finch (vice-capt), Ashton Agar, Alex Carey (wk), Travis Head, Nathan Lyon, Glenn Maxwell, Shaun Marsh, Jhye Richardson, Kane Richardson, D’Arcy Short, Billy Stanlake, Marcus Stoinis, Andrew Tye, Michael Neser