The other day, an excited Ambati Rayudu noted a key deception from Josh Hazlewood in the pressure-cooker situation in the end overs of a chase by Rajasthan Royals. In his two overs, the 17th and 19th of the innings, the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) quick gave away just 7 runs and picked up three vital wickets, including game-turning ones of Shimron Hetmeyer and Dhruv Jurel.
Hazlewood would grip the ball like an off-cutter but the batsmen still seemed hurried by the ‘slower ones’. Rayudu had glimpsed a side-arm angle of the replays later and burst out in appreciation.
“He is loading up as if he is bowling a slower ball, but bowling quick short-of-length balls,” the former India player told ESPNCricinfo. “There were at least three or four of those balls that the batsmen were late on.”
Sitting beside Rayudu, Aaron Finch chipped in, “they were trying to slog it over midwicket but it would hit the splice of the bat and drip out to cover or midwicket.” Both Finch and Rayudu weren’t sure if Hazlewood had done it before. He had.
Late last year, in a T20 game in Southampton against England’s Liam Livingstone, Hazlewood had loaded up with the back of his hand facing the batsman – the usual cue for a slower one – but released a quick one. A stunned Livingstone was understandably late with his response, chopping it on to his stumps.
In the last year or thereabouts, Hazlewood has taken his T20 game to the next level with these deceptions. And unlike many pacers, he isn’t shy of trying the yorker. With the new ball, he would try the occasional bouncer and often does the opposite of what he does in the end overs – try the slower ones more with the new ball. Like he did against the red-hot Yashasvi Jaiswal in the same game, inducing a weak pull to midwicket with a 128kmph slower bouncer.
For a bowler who hadn’t seemed too clued into the T20 format in his earlier days, Hazlewood is playing a different game now. He sees it as a natural evolution of playing more and more T20s.
“It’s the opportunity to play the format. First it is Sydney Sixers (Big Bash team), CSK and now RCB, and a bit for Australia as well. Taking information from different pieces and putting it all together.”
A couple of years ago, Australia head coach Andrew McDonald had summed up Hazlewood’s rise in T20s: “If you give a highly-skilled bowler a chance in the format, he will work it out.” Essentially, it’s just that.
He bowls a great wobble-ball too with the new ball. Unlike Mitchell Starc whose grip for that delivery is more exaggerated with fingers cutting across the tilted seam, Hazlewood’s more subtle. The index finger is marginally outside the seam on the leather, the middle finger on the seam, and often he releases the ball with the middle finger the last to come off the ball, pushing the orb into a wobble. It’s a delivery that he often uses in Test cricket as well. Some might remember his dismissal of Babar Azam in a Test last year, the ball tilting in late to thread the bat-pad gap and clatter into the stumps. Hazlewood picked it from David Saker, the bowling coach, deployed it in T20 too, and was also instrumental in convincing Starc to start using it.
At times, it’s not recognised how obscure the backgrounds are of some Australian cricketers. It’s just seen under the large umbrella of Australia and certain nuances are forgotten. Hazlewood, for example, comes from a rural village with just 500 inhabitants, most of whom were sheep and cattle farmers. He went to primary school with just five classmates. When he made his Test debut in 2014 as a 19-year old, a large banner went up at the village entrance: ‘Bendemeer’s Josh Hazlewood gets his Baggy Green!’.
In the neighbouring town of Tamworth, where Hazlewood honed his skills as a bowler, a group of punters were staring at a big payday. Friends of Josh’s father Trevor, they had bet $100 in 2007 when he was just 15 that he would play for Australia before he turned 20. The odds were 500-1 and they pocketed $50,000. Wonder if they punted on him becoming this good in T20.
As a boy, Hazlewood won gold in javelin at the National All- Schools Titles, was good at shot-putting as well, and Australian cricket, and now RCB, would be grateful he chose this game.
In some ways, he hasn’t changed much as a bowler. His first coach John Muller, from Tamworth, was the first to tell the kid what to do with a cricket ball. “Take it nice and easy when you run, keep your arm by your side, and don’t throw your arm around.”
That is still the soul of his bowling; just that the brain is always cooking up subtle nuances to trap pesky batsmen.
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