Australia's first Test humiliation complete as Josh Hazlewood comments point to Aussie 'divide'
India took a dominant 1-0 lead in the five-Test series.
Josh Hazlewood's comments about the Aussie Test side have led to suggestions the playing group is divided, with India completing a crushing victory on day four of the first Test in Perth. The tourists continued their onslaught in the first session on day four after removing both Usman Khawaja (four) and Steve Smith (17) cheaply to leave the Aussies 5-104 at lunch and still needing a whopping 430 runs to seal the most improbable victory.
Khawaja was undone by a Mohammed Siraj short ball that he tried to pull to the mid-wicket boundary but instead edged to India wicketkeeper Rishabh Pant. The same combination struck again for the tourists in the opening session just as Smith looked to be getting settled at the crease, with the Aussie having no answers to a superb ball from Siraj that hit the seam, caught the edge and was taken by Pant behind the stumps.
Travis Head (89) and Mitch Marsh (47) finally gave Australia something to cheer about, with Head belting eight boundaries before becoming Jasprit Bumrah's third victim of the second innings. Alex Carey also made a fighting 36 before he was the last man dismissed as India won by 295 runs.
But it was Hazlewood's comments at the close of play on the previous day that suggested he'd given up on the Aussies getting anything out of the first Test, with the fast bowler copping backlash from a number of cricket greats. Hazlewood was clearly frustrated after one of the worst days for Australia in a home Test in recent memory as Yashasvi Jaiswal's stunning 161 and Virat Kohli's unbeaten century saw India coast to an insurmountable 6-487 before declaring with a lead of 534.
Asked where the Aussies would go from there, Hazlewood replied: “You probably have to ask one of the batters that question probably, I’m sort of relaxing and trying to get a bit of treatment and I’m looking mostly to next Test." It was the sort of answer that underlined the frustrations that Hazlewood and his bowling unit must have been feeling after being unable to replicate the first innings where they restricted India to 150.
Hazlewood's response also suggested he'd all but given up hope of getting anything from a first Test that started promisingly for the Aussies but soon turned to dust. More worryingly though, it also pointed to a disconnect between Australia's batting and bowling unit, with Hazlewood's remark hardly representative of a collective mindset. Not surprisingly, it led to Australian cricket great Adam Gilchrist to question whether it showed there were cracks in the Aussie side and a "divide" in the playing group.
Michael Vaughan shocked by Josh Hazlewood's comments
Former England captain Michael Vaughan certainly thought it indicated as much after expressing his shock at Hazlewood's answer. “Publicly, I’ve never heard an Australian come out and divide the camp into batters and bowlers,” Vaughan said on Fox Cricket's coverage.
“There’s 11 batters, that will never change, every player has to bat. There’s two days to go in the Test match, it’s a long shot for Australia to get anything out of this game. “But to publicly see a player say basically I’m thinking about the next game before this game is finished, I’ve been in many teams and I get it.
“You do get the batters and you do get the bowlers... but you can see there’s a bit of grumpiness there, but to publicly come out and say that, I have never seen that from an Australian. Any player around the globe, but particularly an Australian... I always look at the small details in every team... the togetherness and the lack of spirit in the outfield, you don’t say that often about Australia.”
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India legend Ravi Shastri said Hazlewood's comments told him there were "some mental cracks" in the Aussie side to go along with the ones forming on the Perth pitch. “Having come to Australia for 30 or 40 years, this is the first time an Indian team is feeling, ‘you know what, we are better than the opposition in their own backyard’," Shastri said. “Quietly they will be thinking ‘we will have to lose it here’.”
