Follow UsJosh Hazlewood has been ruled out of the second Ashes Test, which is going to be a day-night affair in Brisbane, confirmed Australia head coach Andrew McDonald on November 24 (Monday).
"He's working through the first week of his rehab. I'm not sure that we need to give an update on that. Once he gets further down the track and [we] have some rough timelines, then we'll be in a position to communicate that,” McDonald was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
"I know that he'll be available at some point during the series. 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 added, about the possibility of the pacer playing any future role in the series.
But what about skipper Pat Cummins was the most common question the head coach faced. He had an answer ready for it as well. The 44-year-old, former Australian all-rounder said, "Once we see him again, we'll be able to then join the dots as to what that potentially looks like.”
“But for those who saw him in Perth, I did say this a while back that he'll be up and bowling...and people will be sitting there questioning why he's not playing.”
However, the coach was quick to say that if he is not fully fit, they would not rush Cummins back because it might affect him in the long run.
"It looked like a player that was nearing the completion of his rehabilitation. The intensity was there, the ball speed was there. 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.
After the Perth Test finished in just two days, the expectations of the Brisbane Test aren’t high either, as it would be a pink ball affair and pacers will have a large say once again.