You’d think the man considered the world’s best bowler in T20 cricket would have the game on a loop. Josh Hazlewood, world No 1 in T20s told Guardian’s Simon Burnton he prefers footy and rugby league on the tube, or golf maybe. As for his bread and butter sport, cricket, the fun is in the crunching of the toast. “I like playing it,” he told Guardian.
In an interview ahead of the World Cup, Hazlewood said: “I don’t watch much cricket in general, to be honest. If we’re coming up against Sri Lanka down the track I might watch a little bit of their games but usually there’s enough footage to watch in bowling meetings. So yeah, I hardly watch any cricket.”
When asked if he genuinely likes cricket, he said: “I like playing it. If there’s a huge game I might switch it on, or if I know someone well who’s playing I might give it a watch, but otherwise I’ll more watch footy, rugby league. I like watching golf. I’ll watch a bit of that.”
On retiring, he told Guardian, he’s likely to leave the sport entirely unless a “very part-time” opportunity came along.
Hazlewood played only 9 T20s for Australia over eight years since debuting in the format in 2013, and wasn’t considered too hot at it. “I just didn’t play it, to be honest,” he told Guardian. He would step in for the more regulars only in June 2021, after they tired of bio bubbles and he travelled to West Indies.
Guardian calls him the ‘metronome’ for landing the ball repeatedly in same areas. “I’ve got some changes but not big ones, I don’t think. I’m always working on trying to get better ones. You often find guys with strange actions or very fast arms have good changes of pace because they can deceive you, but for a rhythmical bowler like myself changes of pace are going to be hard. It’s just subtle changes here and there,” he said.
But Hazlewood maintained a very sorted tone about his equation with the T20 format. “I always thought that if I got a good run at it I could learn on the go and be effective,” he says. “I think if I played a lot of games in a row and wasn’t effective then that’s probably when you’d [think] maybe the format’s gone.”
