IND vs ENG | Hopefully England do a good job for us against India, hopes Josh HazlewoodÂ
Depending on results of others is certainly not a good spot to be in but the Australian team find themselves there and pacer Josh Hazlewood is hoping for favourable results from the India-England Tests. He also added that it's disappointing to miss out on touring South Africa for a Test series.
Australia find themselves in a strange situation where their World Test Championship hopes lie in the hands of their arch-nemesis England. They would require the Three Lions to either win the series against India 2-1 or else the ongoing series to conclude at 1-1 or 2-2, for them to play New Zealand in the WTC finale. Australia's chances took a major hit when CA decided to pull out of the South Africa Tests owing to the COVID situation in the rainbow nation.Â
Australian pacer Josh Hazlewood stated that he's keeping a keen eye on the ongoing India-England series and is hoping for the Three Lions to come good for the Australians.Â
"I probably wouldn't be watching it at all in normal cases. But we're riding the result a bit and just keeping an eye on it here and there and hopefully, England can do a good job for us. It's a strange feeling, although just being beaten by India you don't mind ... going for England," Hazlewood said to Unplayable Podcast, as reported by cricket.com.au.
He said that it hurts to miss out on the South Africa Tests as it took the chance of qualifying for the WTC finals from their hands and now they have to depend on others.Â
"You never want to miss a Test tour, which is probably why it was such a difficult decision and it really hurts our chances in the Test Championship as well. It takes that (playing in the final) out of our hands and we have to watch this series going on now (in India) and focus on that and try and get the right result there.
"It's disappointing we could potentially miss out on that (the WTC final) and that's why it was such a difficult decision to make," he added.
The last Test series that Australia played against India, they were defeated by a depleted side. Looking back, the pacer feels the team could have done better and admitted that they didn't play well at the MCG while in the last two Tests, they couldn't cash in from dominating positions.Â
"We tried our best at the time and looking back we could have done a few things differently here and there, obviously in those last two games. But I think Melbourne goes under the radar a bit too, we didn't play great cricket there and got beaten pretty comprehensively," said Hazlewood.
"The last two Tests we were frontrunning the whole game, didn't quite get there in Sydney and they played beautifully the last day in Brisbane. But in general, pretty proud with how we went about it, just got beaten by a better team on the day," he added.