Australia suffer major blow ahead of second Border-Gavaskar Test against India

Australia pace spearhead Josh Hazlewood was on Saturday ruled out of the second Test of the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy against India in Adelaide, with seamers Sean Abbott and Brendon Doggett added to their squad.

The right-armer, who took five wickets in Australia’s 295-run first Test defeat at Perth, has what Cricket Australia (CA) described as “a low-grade left side injury”.

“Josh Hazlewood will remain with the group in Adelaide to prepare for the remainder of the series,” CA added.

While the uncapped Abbott and Doggett were drafted in, Hazelwood’s absence is likely to open the door for Scott Boland to play in the day-night Test between Australia and India that will start on Friday.

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Boland, who was already part of the squad, played the last of his 10 Tests in July 2023 against England at Headingley.

If selected it would be Boland’s second Test match in Adelaide after playing against the West Indies in 2022 when he had match figures of 3-45.

There are also question marks around allrounder Mitchell Marsh, who, like Hazlewood, pulled up sore following their Perth thrashing. Beau Webster was on Thursday called into the squad as cover for him.

Squad for the second Border-Gavaskar Test

Australia: Pat Cummins (c), Scott Boland, Alex Carey (wk), Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitch Marsh, Nathan McSweeney, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Beau Webster

India: Rohit Sharma (c), Jasprit Bumrah (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Devdutt Padikkal, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant, Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar. Reserves: Mukesh Kumar, Navdeep Saini, Khaleel Ahmed, Yash Dayal

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