Men’s Ashes 2021-22 – Selectors ready for ‘tough talks’ about Australian bowling depth

Josh Hazlewood will be trusted about his fitness, while Mitchell Starc is unlikely to be rotated

Hazlewood topped around 35 minutes of soft bowling at MCG nets Thursday, still showing some discomfort coming back from lateral strain.

The session was Hazlewood’s first bowling alley in nearly three weeks, after bruising his side in the Ashes opener at the Gabba and missing the next two trials.

With the series already wrapped up in favor of Australia, there is some argument that Hazlewood should be given more time to recover. But head coach George Bailey said his panel would not stop Hazlewood if possible.

“I have a lot of good faith that Hoff knows his own body and trusts his own body,” Bailey said. “He will build as he would before any kind of test. He will talk a lot with [assistant] Andrew McDonald and [physio] David Beakley to see how he does. If Hoff is confident and says he’s right to go, I think we back him. He has earned that trust. “

Starc was required to throw just 25 overs at the MCG and Australia’s early win gave him day four and five off without even bowling at the nets and a week between Tests.

“Your plans are constantly changing because you have no idea how many overs the bowlers are going to throw,” Bailey said. “So you have to be pretty fluent about that. Today would have been day five. So our rapids, in particular, don’t have as heavy a workload as they did in Adelaide and a couple extra days off. your favor. “

At best, there could be room for one of them, creating a difficult situation for the selectors given that Richardson was above Boland in the pecking order before Melbourne.

“That’s a headache. It’s a huge headache,” Bailey said. “Obviously, there will be some difficult conversations at some point.”

“We have no doubt that, whether at SCG or in the future, Swepo is ready,” Bailey said. “We would like nothing more than for him to have a chance, but it will probably depend on the conditions.”