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Michael Clarke questions Josh Hazlewood's participation in IPL 2023
Follow UsThe Royal Challengers Bangalore pacer returned after an injury lay-off to bowl a crucial spell in their victory over Lucknow Super Giants
Former Australia captain Michael Clarke is not too pleased to see premier fast bowler Josh Hazlewood play in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023, given that the Ashes is a little over a month away. Hazlewood is coming off a long lay-off following his Achilles heel injury that kept him out for a long time, including the Border-Gavaskar Trophy against India recently.
Clarke believes Hazlewood playing in the IPL is not ideal preparation for the Ashes. After missing the first eight games, Hazlewood turned up for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), where he finished with 2 for 15 from three overs against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in Lucknow on Monday (May 1).
“I don’t know why he’s [Hazlewood] over playing IPL. I don’t know why he’s not over here in Australia preparing to play Test match cricket,” Clarke told Fox Sports.
“I know they’ll have people over there, in the nets he’ll be bowling more than what the IPL players are bowling, in preparation for Test match cricket. But I just don’t know if him bowling three overs, four overs right now is his best preparation for an Ashes series, after the injuries he’s had and the amount of time he’s had out of Test cricket,” he added.
While Clarke admitted that Cricket Australia (CA) can get players to withdraw from the cash-rich tournament, but he feels nobody can say no to India. “They can do it now. They can stop you going, But it’s India. Are you kidding? No one is saying no to India," Clarke said.
Elaborating further, Clarke said, “We had the conversation about Cameron Green … is it in Cameron’s Green’s interest right now, with his body, with the Ashes series coming up, with the amount of cricket we have coming up, for him to be over there playing IPL? Or would he be better off taking four weeks rest, recover, rehab and start a pre-season?"
“Unless Cricket Australia are going to say, ‘OK the IPL has just offered you $3 million for eight weeks … we’ll pay you that $3 million, you stay home and train with us,’ there’s nothing they can do."
The first Ashes of five Tests will be played at Edgbaston, starting June 16.